Buenos Aires Herald 
Argentina’s Interior Ministry has begun legal action against British billionaire Joseph Lewis and his company “Hidden Lake” over the purchase of 12,000 hectares surrounding Lago Escondido in Río Negro.
In a resolution dated September 27 and published on Thursday by Ambito, the government described Lewis owning the land as “detrimental to the public interest” and called for an investigation to “nullify the authorizations” that led to the purchase.
It is the first legal claim the national government has ever made against Lewis. The ranch has been the center of controversy for years and consistently put the billionaire at odds with the local judiciary.
The Ministry filed the complaint on Thursday, based on a report from the Office of the Attorney General for Administrative Investigations (PIA, by its Spanish initials) stating that the real estate transaction was “in violation of the Law that prevents the sale of land to foreigners in a border security zone”.
According to the PIA report, legal irregularities allowed Lewis’ firm, Hidden Lake, to acquire the lands in 1996 and 1997 by “pretending to have [financial] capital of national origin” when it did not. National capital was legally required to comply with the regulations.
Last year, the government requested a judicial takeover of Lewis’ firm, which is registered as a farming company in Lago Escondido because they consider it to be “a front” to stop anyone from reaching the lake.
Lewis’s employees consistently block the route to Lake Escondido itself, despite Argentine law establishing that lakes are public and must be accessible. This has put the billionaire at loggerheads with the Río Negro provincial judiciary. Every year, activists attempt to march to the lake. In January, Lewis’s private security workers injured nine people when they clashed with the march.
Social leader Juan Grabois said on social media that “the Lewis’ subjugation ranges from National Security to the simple enjoyment of a wonderful mirror of water like Lago Escondido, from influence peddling to the destruction of the second most important cypress reserve on the planet”.
Grabois said that Interior Minister Eduardo ‘Wado’ de Pedro showed “courage” since “for the first time, he succeeded in having the national state appear as plaintiff against Joseph Lewis in its capacity as an injured party in the usurpation of Lago Escondido”.
Lewis has been the focal point of other controversies. His ranch was covertly used as a retreat by judges, politicians, and businessmen on October 13, 2022. Some of them have been indicted for allegedly receiving illegal gifts from the Clarín media group, suspected of having paid for the trip.
In July, U.S. prosecutors accused Lewis of leading a “brazen” insider trading scheme by passing tips about companies in which he invested to friends, private pilots, and a former girlfriend.
—with information from Télam
