By Cubadebate Media Observatory on August 24, 2026 (Part 1)
The name Fernando Cerimedo has sent shockwaves through the regional political landscape, appearing time and again at the intersection of election campaigns, digital communication operations, and transnational political networks of the new Latin American right.
The Argentine businessman was arrested in Bolivia last week, accused of organizing an armed attack against his ex-partner, Nadia Beller, who survived after being shot three times. The prosecutor’s office charged him with attempted femicide, and the court ordered 180 days of pretrial detention; at the same time, an investigation was opened into alleged illicit enrichment.
His political connections trace a regional network associated with smear campaigns, disinformation, and aggressive digital strategies: Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, where he spread the false claim of election fraud in 2022; Javier Milei in Argentina, for whose 2023 presidential campaign he was a key operator of the digital strategy; the “Rejection” bloc in the Chilean constitutional referendum, where his company was linked to disinformation operations; and, more recently, Rodrigo Paz in Bolivia, whose inner circle he joined as a political advisor. Links or support have also been documented with Argentina’s Patricia Bullrich, Honduras’ Nasry Asfura, and other figures on the regional right.
The common thread in his work for the continental right is the intensive use of social media, political targeting, partisan media, and—in several instances—false or misleading content to undermine opponents and shape public discourse.
Less visible, however, has been Fernando Cerimedo’s true center of operations: the United States.
And this is the starting point for the main thesis of this new investigation by the Cubadebate Media Observatory: Cerimedo simultaneously built a corporate base in Miami—a transnational media network whose center of operations was in the United States and which benefited from its privileged ties to key power structures within the Trump administration, particularly Marco Rubio.
Cerimedo’s channel of access to U.S. power is his partner, the Argentine-American Damián Merlo, owner of the Miami-based firm Latin America Advisory Group (LAAG), whose dealings with U.S. congressional and executive branch offices are documented in filings submitted under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
Reconstructing this architecture—comprising business, media, and political access—allows us to view Cerimedo not only as a Latin American election campaign operator but also as part of a transnational infrastructure with a central hub in the United States.
1. Cerimedo’s Company Established in Florida
On May 24, 2023, NUMEN Advisors LLC was registered, effective as of the previous day, at 13499 Biscayne Boulevard, North Miami. The official record from the Florida Division of Corporations lists the number L23000254200 and provides access to historical documents: the articles of incorporation, a December 2023 amendment, and the 2024 annual report. Fernando G. Cerimedo was listed in the initial documentation; following the amendment, Aldo O. Arteaga remained as a member. The company is currently listed as inactive for failing to file the required annual report.
The timing is significant. NUMEN, Cerimedo’s company, was founded during the Argentine presidential campaign, and just three months later, that same company signed a memorandum with Miami-based consultant Damián Merlo. Cerimedo’s connection to Miami was, therefore, both corporate and operational.
At the same time, another entity was operating: La Derecha Diario, a project associated with Cerimedo and later shared with Spanish businessman Javier Negre. Shortly thereafter, they acquired UHN Plus, a platform primarily dedicated to spreading disinformation against Cuba, whose “About Us” page explains that Negre made a strategic investment in October 2025 and became vice president and co-owner.
2. Merlo, Cerimedo’s Bridge to Washington
The key piece of evidence is neither a photograph nor a statement to the press. It is a document filed with the U.S. Department of Justice. The memo dated September 4, 2023 is addressed to “Fernando Cerimedo, CEO of NUMEN” and signed by Damián Merlo, managing partner of LAAG; it documents the signing of a contract to collaborate with Javier Milei’s campaign through December 10 of that year.
Contract between Cerimedo and Damián Merlo to participate in the Argentine presidential campaign. Source: FARA/U.S. Department of Justice.
The plan called for assessing opportunities in U.S. media, drafting opinion pieces, contacting members of the House and Senate—with an emphasis on South Florida—reaching out to think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, CSIS, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Atlantic Council, and organizing a visit to Washington.
The supplement filed in January 2024 confirms that Merlo, in partnership with Cerimedo, provided public relations consulting services and reached out to Congress, the media, and public affairs organizations on behalf of Milei. The filing was made with the Department of Justice, in accordance with the FARA Act.
Javier Milei, Tucker Carlson, and Damián Merlo, hired as a lobbyist by Fernando Cerimedo for the libertarian. Photo: La Nación, October 4, 2023
What is FARA? The Foreign Agents Registration Act requires certain individuals and firms acting in the United States on behalf of foreign entities to disclose clients, contracts, activities, contacts, and payments. Being registered under FARA does not imply espionage or illegal activity: it is a mechanism for transparency. Its journalistic value lies in the fact that it leaves a verifiable documentary trail.
The collaboration yielded a publicly verifiable result: Merlo coordinated Javier Milei’s controversial interview with far-right host Tucker Carlson as part of the Argentine’s presidential campaign. The conversation introduced Milei to a conservative U.S. audience and positioned him within an international movement opposed to socialism, progressivism, and the so-called establishment. Merlo told the newspaper La Nación that the conversation made the candidate known worldwide.
The record, on its own, already demonstrates something broader: Cerimedo placed the Argentine campaign in the hands of a U.S. structure designed to influence the media, Congress, and think tanks.
3. Rubio, Salazar, Diaz-Balart, and Claver-Carone
Merlo’s political career predates his contract with Cerimedo. A 2021 FARA filing regarding efforts in El Salvador documents a December 2020 in-person meeting with Mauricio Claver-Carone—then president of the Inter-American Development Bank—and Viviana Bovo, an advisor to then-Senator Marco Rubio.
The same file also records, in February and March 2021, meetings between Merlo and Bovo; a phone call with Ricardo Pita (former advisor to Senator Ted Cruz and current senior advisor for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the State Department); a meeting with Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart; and an introductory dinner with Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar. This can be viewed in the original federal amendment.
Meeting on April 14, 2025, at the White House with Trump and Marco Rubio: Merlo is the first person standing on the left. The Salvadoran newspaper El Faro reports: “At the meeting between Bukele and Trump at the White House on April 14, 2025, for example, the only people present were ministers, secretaries of the Presidency, Venezuelan advisor Sara Hanna, and Merlo.” This detail drew attention because Merlo is a hired U.S. lobbyist—not a Salvadoran official—and his presence in that circle was seen as unusual. The Chilean media outlet Interferencia described it as the first time a foreign president had arrived at the White House accompanied by his lobbyist in Washington.
This pattern is evident in subsequent statements. The February 2025 FARA supplement documents dozens of meetings, messages, and emails throughout 2024 with members of María Elvira Salazar’s office and staff of the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, as well as contacts with the media and other lawmakers.
Date Recorded Contact Proven Scope
Dec. 2020 Claver-Carone and Bovo In-person meetings regarding El Salvador
Feb.–Mar. 2021 Rubio’s circle, Díaz-Balart, and Salazar Phone call, meetings, and dinner
Sept. 2023 Cerimedo/NUMEN–Merlo Written agreement for Milei
2024 Salazar’s office and the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee Repeated contacts via FARA
Jan. 13, 2026 Four meetings at the State Department; one meeting with Joseph Humire Five in-person meetings
Taken together, this evidence suggests that Cerimedo’s agent in Miami, Damián Merlo, had documented access for years to Florida’s anti-Cuban network and to Executive Branch officials, with privileged ties to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s inner circle.
4. Merlo and the anti-Cuba programs
Merlo’s access to the Cuban-American community did not come out of nowhere. His relationship with Cuba predates his current activity as a lobbyist in Washington and Miami by more than two decades. His own professional history places his first direct connection in 1996–1997, when he worked for eight months as a Screening Officer at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, hired by the State Department.
According to his profile, he conducted preliminary interviews with former Cuban “political prisoners” who were applying to emigrate to the United States and claims to have processed more than 600 cases. Another professional biography, published in 2009 by Francisco Marroquín University, specifically lists the United States Interests Section in Havana (USINT)—the U.S. diplomatic mission in Cuba prior to the reestablishment of diplomatic relations—among the institutions where he worked.
But his involvement with the Cuban dossier did not end there. Between 2002 and 2007, Merlo served as Program Officer at the International Republican Institute (IRI) and states in his own resume that he was responsible for implementing the organization’s programs for Mexico, Cuba, and Brazil, as well as preparing reports for Congress and other high-ranking U.S. officials and managing proposals for multimillion-dollar government grants. Documents from that period clarify the scope of that portfolio: in 2005, Merlo is identified as the head of the IRI program that, through a grant to the Cuban Revolutionary Democratic Directorate in Miami, promoted international solidarity committees aimed at providing material, political, and ideological support to Cuban activists.
This period coincided with the years when James Cason headed the U.S. Interests Section in Havana (2002–2005) and with an expansion of U.S. “democracy promotion” programs targeting Cuba. Therefore, although the documentation found does not allow us to confirm that Merlo was a State Department official during those years, it once again places him within the institutional ecosystem that implemented U.S. programs related to Cuba.
There is also a second significant connection. After leaving the IRI, Merlo served as vice president of Otto Reich Associates from 2007 to 2010, a firm headed by former Cuban-American official Otto Reich, a key figure in Republican policy toward Latin America and Cuba. That connection also links him to the Center for a Free Cuba, an organization chaired by Reich according to its tax filings.
According to The Guardian, it was Otto Reich who introduced another Cuban-American lobbyist, Mauricio Claver-Carone, to Trump’s then-national security adviser, John Bolton. Claver-Carone went on to become the top official for Latin American policy at the National Security Council in 2018, and in 2025, Donald Trump appointed him as the State Department’s special envoy for Latin America, with the goal of having him “take charge” of the region.
In 2026, he reappeared in Venezuela as the United States’ “unofficial viceroy” and “Marco Rubio’s right-hand man,” according to The Washington Post.
Merlo’s Cuban background and his close political ties to the far-right faction in Florida help explain the political landscape: Miami, the counterrevolutionary organizations based there, South Florida lawmakers, and specialists in hemispheric politics form a relatively stable institutional network. When Cerimedo turned to Merlo in 2023, he bought access to a network cultivated over many years, not a makeshift contact list for Milei.
5. The Leap to the U.S. Executive Branch
The most revealing document is Supplemental Statement 6898, submitted to the Department of Justice on July 30, 2026. On a single date—January 13—Damián Merlo’s firm reported four meetings held on behalf of the Presidency of El Salvador: with Gavin Wax, chief of staff to Undersecretary Sarah Rogers; Christopher Landau, undersecretary of state; Ana Quintana, from Policy Planning; and Viviana Bovo, senior advisor for the Western Hemisphere (who has been working with Rubio for years, as we saw earlier).
On that same January 13—ten days after the military aggression against Venezuela—a fifth meeting was recorded with Joseph Humire, whom the official website of the Department of Defense lists as head of Security Affairs for the Americas, an office that formulates regional policy and oversees security cooperation and military sales. Nor does the meeting appear to be a completely “cold” contact. Humire was director of the Center for a Secure Free Society and a visiting fellow at Heritage, where he worked on Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, and hemispheric security.
Both Damián Merlo and Fernando Cerimedo have forged relationships that extend to high-ranking figures in U.S. political circles and to circles close to the Executive Branch. A central figure in that network is Brad Parscale, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager and Cerimedo’s technology partner in Latin America, who participated in a meeting held at Mar-a-Lago that was also attended by Marco Rubio, the current Secretary of State, and Republican Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar.
The fact that these figures gathered in that setting demonstrates the level of political access enjoyed by the business and strategic circles in which they operate.
Figure 3. Qualitative intensity of Merlo’s milestones in FARA. As of 2023, he is already associated with Cerimedo.
Conclusions
The documentation examined reveals more than just a series of personal contacts. What emerges is a transnational infrastructure of political influence with complementary components: NUMEN provided Fernando Cerimedo with a business base in Miami; La Derecha Diario and, subsequently, its connection to Negre and UHN Plus expanded the media network; and Damián Merlo’s Latin America Advisory Group opened a formal channel to U.S. media outlets, congressional offices, think tanks, and executive branch agencies.
Within this architecture, Miami does not function as a mere business address. It operates as a platform for coordination among Latin American campaigns, ideologically driven media outlets, political consultants, organizations within the Cuban-American community, and sectors of the Republican Party capable of influencing U.S. hemispheric policy.
Damián Merlo’s role is crucial to understanding this network. Long before his contract with Cerimedo and his involvement in Javier Milei’s campaign, he had worked in circles linked to U.S. programs on Cuba and had established documented relationships with figures and offices associated with Marco Rubio, María Elvira Salazar, Mario Díaz-Balart, and Mauricio Claver-Carone. His FARA filings later reveal the continuity and expansion of that access: in January 2026, in a single day, he held meetings with four officials from the State Department and with Joseph Humire at the Department of Defense under the Trump administration.
Therefore, the politically relevant fact here is not merely that Cerimedo hired a lobbyist in Miami. He purchased access to a network that had been built up over years within the very same political ecosystem in which some of Washington’s most aggressive stances toward Cuba and Latin America have been promoted. When Cerimedo arrived at Merlo in 2023, he did not begin building that network from scratch: he connected to a preexisting infrastructure.
Nor does the investigation need to attribute conspiracies or illegal activities that the documents do not prove. The FARA records themselves exist precisely to make these relationships visible. What they allow us to establish is significant enough: Latin American election campaigns, political communication operations, media platforms, and lobbying networks converge within the same U.S. political space, with Miami as the connecting node and Washington as the hub for access to power.
That is likely the main finding. Cerimedo is often portrayed as an operator of the new Latin American right who operates from country to country. The documentation compels us to broaden that image: a substantial part of the infrastructure from which this intervention is carried out is anchored in the United States.
Political geography, therefore, matters. Behind operations that later emerge in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, or other Latin American settings lies a corporate, media, and political support network connected to Florida and to power structures in Washington. Miami is not the periphery of the operation here: it is one of its centers.
Methodology
This article cross-referenced original documents: historical corporate records from Florida; FARA filings 6890 and 6898 from the Department of Justice; the NUMEN–LAAG memorandum; the July 30, 2026, supplement; IRI reports; institutional websites of the Defense Department and the Heritage Foundation; and the Brazilian Federal Police report. Press releases were used to attribute allegations, gather denials, or connect public facts. Three categories were applied: proven (direct primary source), contextual or inferred (consistent coincidences without corroborating evidence), and uncorroborated (allegations without independent support).
Source: Cubadebate translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English