The highest levels of the Bolivian government, headed by its president, the right-wing Rodrigo Paz, never imagined that they could be shaken in such a way by an attempted femicide perpetrated by hitmen in Santa Cruz, more than 800 kilometers by road from the capital, La Paz, on August 17.
However, the victim, who survived the attack, was none other than Nadia Beller, the ex-partner, who was also pregnant, of the Argentine and at that time very close advisor to the Bolivian president, Fernando Cerimedo, a man who has traveled through several Latin American countries as a digital operator at the service of far-right candidates, making the use of troll farms and negative campaigns a fundamental part of his modus vivendi.
The individual was the founder of the news website La Derecha Diario and is the director of Numen, a political marketing agency that directly participated in the campaigns of Javier Milei in Argentina and Nasry Asfura in Honduras. He also disseminated, without presenting any evidence, questions about Brazil's electoral system following the defeat of then-President Jair Bolsonaro by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. For this reason, the Supreme Federal Court (STF) included him in its investigations into the attempted coup for which the now-former president was later convicted, as well as the spread of fake news, ordering the freezing of all his bank accounts.
The scandal.
After escaping danger, stating that at the time of the attack she had to fake her death "because otherwise they were going to finish me off," Nadia Beller began to make a series of accusations in which she not only accused him of being the alleged mastermind behind the attack, but also linked him, along with the first lady and several figures close to the Bolivian head of state, to a corruption scheme that gradually grew in scale, to the point that the country's vice president, Edmand Lara, a staunch critic and opponent of Paz since the beginning of his term, also became directly involved in the accusations.
Beller, who requested "protected witness" status in order to reveal everything she knew about Cerimedo, accused him of trying to "silence" her to prevent her from revealing all the information she had about the corruption that linked her ex-partner to high-ranking government officials, including the first lady, María Elena Urquidi, with whom he became involved when he became a "tutor" in digital marketing for the presidential couple's daughter, Angelina Paz.
The lawyer asserted that Cerimedo did not receive a salary from any state institution, but rather lived off millions of dollars in income through contracts and cash payments from companies that benefited from the current Bolivian government's administration.
Shortly after, Judge Wilson Espada ordered 180 days of preventive detention to advance the investigations of the case and after telephone forensics in which they detected messages in which he was allegedly linked to the material perpetrators of the act, in addition to other criminal elements, the Public Prosecutor charged him with the crimes of attempted femicide, illicit enrichment (when they raided a residence they found more than 40 thousand dollars in cash and a farm with thousands of “bots”), money laundering, links with drug trafficking and cover-up (for his participation in the facilitation of irregular operations and flights linked to the illicit trafficking of controlled substances).
For his part, President Rodrigo Paz has been brief in his statements to the media, distancing himself from his former advisor, stating that he never had any official authorization to represent the government, while the presidential spokesman, José Luis Gálvez, acknowledged that he provided external advice on digital marketing.
The links in Argentina with the administration of Javier Milei
In his native Argentina, Fernando Cerimedo contributed directly to the campaign that brought the far-right Javier Milei to the presidency as one of those responsible for the digital and social media strategy of the then candidate of La Libertad Avanza (LLA), also organizing the teams that were deployed to supervise the votes in the election and even the logistics for the interview that the American journalist Tucker Carlson did with him in Buenos Aires.
He himself acknowledged that with his group Numen he used automated accounts (trolls) and artificial intelligence to intervene in algorithms and influence public opinion through networks in favor of Milei.
Although there are records of his numerous visits to the White House (presidential headquarters), the government has stated that he never held a public office and the president himself has tried to distance himself from his former advisor.
However, the newspaper Página 12 has revealed that Cerimedo continued to be an influential figure with significant weight in the digital strategy of the president's party.
The media outlet also revealed that the consultant had recordings of alleged conversations with officials from the Milei government in which the issue of requesting alleged commissions was discussed.
Nadia Beller: the lawyer who uncovered the scandal
Nadia Beller, a 33-year-old former beauty queen whose attempted femicide sparked the scandal that is now shaking Bolivia's political power, was born in Santa Cruz, where the attack occurred. In 2019, she was on the ballot for the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party of President Evo Morales, although after his overthrow she became a staunch critic of his actions in government.
On August 17, while driving her vehicle through one of the streets of her hometown, she was intercepted by hitmen who shot at her repeatedly, causing serious injuries to her torso and limbs, for which she was admitted to the intensive care unit of a private clinic where, when out of danger, she accused her ex-partner, Fernando Cerimedo, the Argentine advisor to the Bolivian president, Rodrigo Paz, of being the intellectual author of the failed femicide.
But Beller also uncovered a political scandal in which he linked the consultant to shady dealings connected to the First Lady of Bolivia, María Elena Urquidi, as well as many members of the presidential circle, who he claimed participated in irregular negotiation schemes, in the collection of commissions for the importation of diesel and the distribution of fuel.
