José Luis Manzano

José Luis Manzano (born March 9, 1956 in Tupungato, Mendoza province, Argentina) is an Argentine politician and businessman. He is currently a partner in the second largest multimedia group in his country, Grupo Uno, and has investments in several economic sectors, including energy, wine, and apparel.
Described as “an operator in the shadows,” Manzano has been implicated in corruption frequently during his career. An intimate of presidents Nestor Kirchner and Cristina Fernandez Kirchner, he was Interior Minister under President Carlos Menem, during whose administration he became notorious for replying to accusations of corruption by saying: “I steal for the crown.”

A native of Mendoza's department of Tupungato, he studied Medicine at the National University of Cuyo.

Political activities

Manzano was active in Argentinian politics during the 1980s and 90s. A member of the Peronist Party, “La Renovación Peronista.” he was a founder and an active member of group which consolidated and strengthened the party following the electoral defeat it experienced when democracy returned to the country. One source describes him as “the symbol of the late-80s renewal of Peronism.”

He was elected as a deputy in 1983 and served as Interior Minister during Carlos Menem's first presidency. Among other things, Manzano “defended and promoted the expansion of the Supreme Court...that gave Menem the famous 'automatic majority' in the judiciary.” With two other members of the Menem regime, Roberto Dromi and Eduardo Bauza, Manzano formed a trio, known as “Mendoza,” who put Menem's wishes into action, for example in the realm of privatization.

During his time as Interior Minister, 59% of Argentinians considered Manzano a corrupt politician. He became infamous in Argentina after saying "I steal for the crown"in April 1989,the manifest intention of which, to quote one source, was “to give an air of legality to corruption.” Manzano's remark became so widely known that it gave rise to the title of a 1995 book about the corruption of the Menem regime, Robo para la corona: Los frutos prohibitos del arbol de corrupcion (I Steal for the Crown: The Forbidden Fruits of the Tree of Corruption).The author of the book, Horacio Verbitsky, wrote that Manzano did not make this statement only one time but frequently, when confronted with evidence of his own corruption.

In 1993, after being the target of criticism over government corruption, he resigned as Interior Minister and entered a brief period of self-exile in the U.S.

United States

From 1993 to 1995 Manzano lived in California, in the United States, where he began to develop his career in the private sector acting as an international consultant. He lived in Washington, D.C in 1994 where he joined the Republican Party. In 1995, he studied English and American domestic policy at the University of San Diego, and created a consulting firm known as Integra Investments S.A., where he serves as the president of the company. Integra has offices located in Washington, Miami, Buenos Aires and Mendoza. In late 1995, after spending two years away from his country, he returned to Argentina with plans of pursuing a business career. He is partner of the second largest broadcasting network in Argentina. He also has investments in the energy and oil sectors, wine and clothing industries, among others.

In the U.S., Manzano lived first in California, where he studied English and American domestic politics and finance at the University of San Diego, and then in Washington, D.C., where he forged a business alliance with Jose Mas Canosa, an anti-Castro Cuban. Manzano became an “operator” in Argentina and Central America for Mas Canosa, who died in 1996. Some reports indicate that it was Manzano who secured a sizable contribution by Mas Canosa to Menem's 1995 re-election campaign. In 1995 Manzano, whose friends ironically nicknamed him “the fugitive tyrant,” created a consulting firm, Integra, headquartered in Washington, Miami, Buenos Aires, and Mendoza.

Grupo Uno

Resettling in Argentina in 1996, Manzano and entrepreneur Daniel Vila, also from Mendoza, created UNO Medios, also known as Grupo Uno (Group One) or Group Vila-Manzano. With help from Mas Canosa, they also established Supercanal Holding AS, now valued at more than $800 million.

Grupo Uno acquired the Buenos Aires-based TV channel América 2, in partnership with the politician and businessman Francisco de Narvaez. Manzano and Vila developed Group One into the second-largest media group in Argentina. By the end of the 90s, it controlled the principal channels of the Cuyo region: Channel 7 (Mendoza), Channel 8 (San Juan) and Channel 6 (San Rafael). Today Grupo Uno consists of 40 media outlets throughout the country, including press, radio, television, and digital enterprises. Among the major ones is channel América 2, in Buenos Aires, whose operation license was renewed during Néstor Kirchner’s administration. All together, Grupo Uno reaches around 25 million people in Argentina. In addition, it is also a service supplier of Triple Play (telephony, Internet and cable television) through the company Supercanal. Some 450,000 people in 14 Argentinian provinces subscribe to its services.

The Vila-Manzano group also bought into cable operations abroad, in 1977 acquiring 25% of Procono in Spain, and in 1997 forming Supercanal Cable Spain. The group also purchased VVC, Alvarez & Alvarez, Video Selimn, MEG, Electro Audio and Imagem Teresopolis, CATV Sat LITD, and Televisao Spectrum Systems, all in Brazil. In addition, the group owns cable operations in Bolivia and Dominican Supercanal in the Dominican Republic. The group owns or has owned part of the magazine Primera Fila, the newspapers La Capital de Rosario and New Time, Paraná, and various radio stations.

Grupo UNO has 28 licenses between AM, FM and open television broadcasting. Manzano and Vila control channel América and its cable TV channel América24, La Red radio and newspaper networks including La Capital del Rosario and Diario UNO in Entre Rios, Mendoza and Santa Fe. With its extensive network of media services, the company reaches about 25 million people in Argentina and thus constitutes the second largest multimedia group in the country. In 2014 the Board of the Autoridad Federal de Servicios de Comunicación Audivisual (AFSCA) approved the plan of adjustment to the Media Law of Grupo UNO.

Wine production

In 1998, Manzano entered the wine industry. He created Grupo Vitivinícola de Tupungato, which operates the Tupungato-based Altus winery.

The winery owns1533 hectares of fields which are located around 1200 – 1500 meters above sea level. Thirty hectares are taken up by vineyards, which produce raw materials for the wines that are sold in domestic and foreign markets. The winery has an output capacity of 1 million liters of wine.

Also located at the Altus winery is a restaurant, La Tupiña en Gualtallary, which is also owned by Grupo Vitivinícola de Tupungato.

Energy and oil

Manzano and Vila also participate in the electricity sector through Andes Energía, a private-public company that provides electricity to Mendoza province. They also control Hidroeléctrica Ameghino S.A. in Chubut province. This electricity generating plant is connected to the Patagonic Electric System and provides an annual 174 Gwh of electricity.

In addition, Manzano has investments in the oil sector through the firm Ketsal/Kilwer. Within the last few years, the business has been awarded exploitation contracts in southern Argentina, an area of great oil extraction potential.

In 2013, José Luis Manzano and Daniel Vila bought 49.9% of the company Mercuria. They also obtained the concession to explore the oil fields of Chañares Herrados and Puesto Pozo Cercado, in Tupungatos. Manzano and Vila through 2017 and have also expanded their oil business to Brazil. They signed an agreement with a Brazilian oil company named Imetame Energia to explore their fields in Brazil.

The Vila-Manzano media group, and its principals, have been repeatedly accused of fraud, censorship of TV programmes, money laundering, unfair dismissal, wire tapping, and tax evasion.

In 2000, for example, Orlando Vignatti, holding member of La Capital Multimedios, sued Manzano and Vila, charging them with fraud and conspiracy in a deal involving shares of several radio stations and the newspaper La Capital de Rosario. The next year, Carlos María Lagos, the former owner of the newspaper, filed a complaint in which he accused Manzano and Vila of depleting the company's funds.

Also in 2001, Manzano and Vila were reported to the Federal Administration of Public Revenue (AFIP) by a former associate of theirs, Bernardo Martín Rutti, for purportedly laundering more than $400 million that Manzano, he said, had illegally obtained during his time in public service. Noting “the prodigious growth of the Vila-Manzano group,” Rutti raised questions about the true ownership of, and source of the funds for, some of the Vila-Manzano companies, and outlined the ways in which the group, according to his allegations, launders funds abroad.

Links to Kirchners and others

An August 2012 article in La Nación described Manzano as an “old political friend of current officials, legislators and judges” who, despite his “low public profile,” is very actively involved with the powers that be. For instance, the relationship of Group One with the banker Raúl Moneta has been the subject of attention. A March 2001 article in La Nación about the “scandals” surrounding Moneta's “dubious” banking group noted Moneta's business relationship to Manzano, while adding that it is “difficult to determine” precisely what the nature of that relationship is.

Observers have also taken note of Manzano's “very close connections to the Casa Rosada” during the administrations of the late Argentine president Néstor Kirchner and the current president, Cristina Férnandez Kirchner. La Nacion has identified as Manzano's “concrete achievements” under these presidencies his ability to secure cable television licenses beyond the legal limits, the government's pardoning of his tax debts, his obtaining of government advertising on the media he owns, and a privileged position in regard to obtaining a mobile-phone concession.

Cablevision raid and aftermath

In December 2011, in response to a complaint by Manzano and Vila, Judge Walter Bento of the province of Mendoza ordered gendarmes to occupy the headquarters of Cablevisión, the cable television company owned by Grupo Clarín, even though Cablevisión did not even operate within his jurisdiction. In turn, Cablevisión accused Bento of rank incompetence and of manifest favoritism toward Manzano and Vila.

It was widely noted that Bento had close ties to Manzano and Vila as well as to the Kirchners. A report by Clarin accused Manzano and Vila of trying “to enter Cablevision...through the Controller Enrique Anzoise” and noted that one of the gendarmes sent into Cablevision headquarters was a security escort for Manzano and that another was a computer spy. On December 23, 2011, Cablevisión pressed charges against Bento with the Judiciary Council, calling for his impeachment. A press release by Cablevision declared that Bento, “with manifest lack of jurisdiction and abuse of authority, ordered that the company be broken into by gendarmes, at the request of Grupo Vila Manzano, one [of] the multimedia groups most favored by the National Government.”

A July 2012 report indicated that Manzano and Vila had been in contact with Kirchner in recent days in connection with an impeachment action taken by Cablevision against Bento, and that both the Manzano-Vila group and the Casa Rosada were exerting pressure to dismiss Cablevision's action. It was further reported in August 2012 that Bento had worked for a foundation owned by Vila and Manzano. Yet another report indicated that Rudy Fernando Ulloa Igor, an “intimate friend of the Kirchner family” and an associate of Grupo Vila-Manzano, had been instrumental in persuading Bento to order the Cablevision raid.

As of 2001, the Vila-Manzano group, through Supercanal Holding SA and other firms, controlled the following cable-TV enterprises in the locations indicated:

• Buenos Aires: Rawson Cable SA, Inversora Antena Comunitaria Trelew SA, Antena Comunitaria SA, Inversora Atelco Comodoro SA, Atelco SA, Cablesur SA, Cabledifusión SA, Comunicaciones Austral SA, SMR SA, Transcable SA, Patagonia on Line SA, ART TV SA, SHO SA, SCH SA, DTH SA, Arlink SA
• Mendoza: Trinidad Televisión SA, Telecable SA, Mirror Holding SRL, Cable Televisora Color SRL, Pehuenche Cable Televisora Color SRL, Sucanal SRL, Horizonte SRL, Nuevo Horizonte SRL, Etemsa SA, TTV SA,
• Tucumán: Monteros Televisora Color Mercedes SRL, Aconquija Televisora Satelital SRL, ACV Cable Visión SRL, AT Sat SRL, Nueva Visión Satelital SRL, Telesur SRL, Lules Cable Color, ICC
• Córdoba: Telesat, Tajamar Sistemas Electrónicos, General Levalle, Vicuña Mackenna TV, lntegra Cable SRL
• San Juan: Televisora del Oeste SA
• San Luis: Cable Televisora Color Mercedes SRL, Carolina Cable Color SA
• La Rioja: TV Cable La Rioja SA, Facundo TV SA, TV Cable Chilecito, San Luis Cable SA
• Catamarca: TV Cable Catamarca SA
• Santiago del Estero: Tele Imagen Codificada SA
• Santa Cruz: Cable Max SA
• Tierra del Fuego: Televisora Austral SA
• Río Negro: BTC SA, Visión Codificada SA
• San M. de los Andes: San Martín de los Andes Televisora Color SA.

The group also owns or has owned the magazine Primera Fila, in Mendoza; the daily newspapers La Capital and El Ciudadano, Rosario; el periódico Nueva Hora de Paraná; Canal 7 in Mendoza, Canal 8, Radio AM Calingasta and Radio FM Nuestra, in San Juan; Megavisión SA (Siempre Mujer) and Radio Rivadavia, among others.

As of 2001, his partner was a model, Alejandra Massilo.