President Javier Milei said that he “does not care in the slightest” how Argentines got their dollars during a television interview on Monday, during which he appeared to encourage tax evasion and play down the risk of courting organized crime. 

It comes as his administration prepares a measure to allow the population to spend dollars without justifying where the funds came from, which experts say would facilitate money laundering, tax evasion, and other crimes.

Asked about such risks, Milei responded that economic issues should be separated from legal and security issues.

The move was announced by Economy Minister Luis Caputo in early May, but has yet to be made official.

“Under the mattress, Argentines have… estimates range between US$200 billion and US$400 billion,” Milei said during an interview on América 24 TV channel. “That means between 33% and 66% of the GDP. That implies an injection of funds into the economy that could generate a huge acceleration of the growth rate.”

According to the INDEC statistical bureau, Argentines held US$256 billion in cash and deposits outside the nation’s financial system in the last quarter of 2024.

He said Argentines who save dollars outside the financial system have done so to “avoid the tax that is inflation,” which he described as “devastating.” 

Tax evaders are ‘heroes’

Asked about dollars stemming from tax evasion, the president said that “taxes are robbery,” later adding: “people who tried to protect themselves from thieving politicians are heroes, not criminals.” 

He went on to argue that organized crime such as drug trafficking should be combated by the Security Ministry and the Defense Ministry, without involving the economy. “You do not use the economy to fight crime,” he said. 

For the measure to work, he said, “the key is that nobody asks where you got your dollars. What’s more, I don’t care where you got your dollars. I don’t care in the slightest. That’s to say, economic issues are fixed in the economy. Issues of other kinds are fixed in the legal and judicial sphere. You have to understand that: they shouldn’t be mixed.”

After the plans were announced, María Eugenia Marano, a lawyer focusing on economic crimes, told the Herald that allowing the population to use dollars with no questions asked facilitated bringing laundered money back into the financial system.

Bank robbery

When journalist Antonio Laje asked whether that would mean bank robbers attempting to pay in US$500,000 would be asked no questions, Milei compared the situation to giving a sick person the wrong medicine, before stating: “Again, with the robbery, you shouldn’t mix the problem of crime with the issue of the economy.”

Under current law, such transactions can be reported to the financial authorities as suspicious. That legislation, Milei said, “is horrific.”

“You have to be able to use dollars with ease. Nobody should be asking for explanations for anything.”

Milei said the measure, which he has described as a form of “endogenous dollarization,” would be similar to a tax amnesty, but without paying taxes.

Milei said that the government had not yet passed the measure because it was addressing legal issues. He refused to give a launch date, stating instead that it would be passed once it was “technically impeccable.”