Behind the scenes, Javier Milei's government brokered a settlement agreement that drops the state's lawsuit against the British magnate. This represents the final surrender in the face of the fraudulent purchase of 12,000 hectares in a border region and a major victory for the "Huemules of Lawfare."

According to an investigation revealed today by El Destape , the government of Javier Milei approved a secret agreement with British magnate Joe Lewis and his company Hidden Lake to end the "action of harm" that the National State itself had been promoting since 2023.

This legal action sought to annul the purchase of the 12,000 hectares surrounding Lago Escondido , a transaction that the Treasury Attorney's Office and the Office of Administrative Investigations had already deemed fraudulent from the outset . Lewis used shell companies to circumvent the prohibition on purchasing land in the Border Security Zone , an embezzlement that the State, by political order, has now decided to forgive.

The return of "Los Huemules"

The agreement cannot be understood without looking at the figures behind the power. The settlement was finalized in complete secrecy during the court recess in January 2026, just weeks before Milei appointed Juan Bautista Mahiques as Minister of Justice.

Let's remember: Mahiques Jr. , along with his father Carlos (a judge on the Court of Cassation), were central figures in the scandalous 2022 trip to Lago Escondido, invited by the Clarín Group . Today, with the Mahiques family at the top of the judicial and political power structure, the State is withdrawing from the lawsuit against its British host. In plain terms, it's a quid pro quo at the highest level .

The disappearance of the file

To ensure the secrecy of the pact, the judicial system applied a "digital censorship":

The scheme of plunder: From Lewis to the Arabs

The article in El Destape connects the points that we at Agenda Malvinas have been denouncing:

1.   Foreign Enclaves: Lewis not only keeps the lake and his mansion; he also controls a hydroelectric plant and has served as a bridge to sell strategic assets, such as his airstrip on the Rio Negro coast, to capital from the United Arab Emirates .

2.   Parallel Army: Judicial impunity reinforces the power of Lewis's "private army" of gauchos, who continue to block the public road to Tacuifí and attack those who try to exercise sovereignty over the water.

3.   Persecution of whistleblowers: While Lewis benefits from a secret agreement, the justice system prosecutes Ricardo Nissen (former head of the IGJ), the official who dared to denounce that Hidden Lake is an illicit "bubble company" .

A Patagonia emptied of sovereignty

This secret agreement confirms that the Land Law is not being amended to attract investment, but to legalize theft. The Milei government has decided that national security is a tradable commodity .

There is no difference between the colonial occupation of our Malvinas Islands and the Lewis enclave in the heart of Río Negro: in both cases, power and force are used to displace Argentine law. Today, with the signing of this conciliation agreement, the National State has become a necessary accomplice to the dispossession .

Argentine sovereignty has suffered one of its most humiliating defeats. This time in a courtroom.