MIAMI — The FBI’s investigation into hundreds of millions of dollars in soccer sponsorship payments routed through local businesses to Argentina’s football association has escalated with a federal grand jury in Miami scheduled to hear testimony and review records on July 30.

A partial screenshot of a grand jury subpoena, which has circulated among Latin American news media, shows that federal prosecutors in Miami are seeking the testimony of an unknown witness with knowledge of the Argentine Football Association, the AFA’s top two executives and two associates.

According to law enforcement officials, the AFA’s senior executives are suspected of moving more than $300 million in sponsorship payments through multiple businesses in Miami-Dade County, resulting in some of that money allegedly lining their pockets in Argentina.

The subpoena asked the witness to “produce all records relating to TourProdEnter.” That is an AFA-linked company formerly based in Aventura that handles the association’s international sponsors and is suspected of being at the center of an alleged wire fraud and money laundering scheme over the past four years, sources have told the Miami Herald. The grand jury, which is run by prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami, asked the witness to produce “any and all communications with Pablo Toviggino, Claudio Tapia, Diego Lucero and Javier Faroni.”

Toviggino is the AFA’s treasurer and Tapia the association’s president. Lucero, an Argentine businessman, has close ties to the senior AFA officials, while Faroni is the owner of TourProdEnter. (In Florida corporate records, Faroni’s wife, Erica Gillette, is listed as the manager of TourProdEnter.)

The subpoena goes on to ask the witness to “make yourself available for testimony on July 30” at 9 a.m. at downtown Miami’s Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. federal courthouse on the 7th floor, where the grand jury convenes. Court clerk Angela E. Noble signed the subpoena, dated July 8, which fell five days after the Argentine national team defeated Cape Verde, 3-2, at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.

An Argentine newspaper, La Nacion, was the first to report that during the match against Cape Verde, FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors questioned Argentine sports businessman Guillermo Tofoni, a key government witness who once handled sponsorship deals with the AFA. The Herald has confirmed that the FBI is seeking evidence about AFA’s operations under the leadership of Tapia and Toviggino, focusing on the association’s relationship with TourProdEnter, which has handled the AFA’s overseas commercial agreements with sponsors such as Adidas.

The FBI’s questioning of Tofoni centered on how the association structured its international commercial agreements and whether its transactions involving U.S.-based banks and companies might have broken federal law by concealing potentially illicit funds and their purpose.

It is not clear whether Tofoni is the witness subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury in Miami on July 30, but he is considered critical to the FBI’s fraud investigation into the AFA.

The Herald was not successful in reaching the AFA for comment.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI’s Miami field office also did not respond to a request for comment about the grand jury subpoena. Under the law, a federal grand jury, prosecutors, agents and court officials must maintain secrecy about the proceedings.

This week, news media in Argentina mistakenly reported that Tapia and Toviggino had received subpoenas to appear before the grand jury in Miami regarding the AFA’s financial dealings. News reports also said they were detained and questioned on Monday upon boarding a chartered flight in New York that was carrying the Argentine national team, after its 1-0 loss to Spain in the 2026 World Cup final on Sunday. It was reported that FBI agents asked them to hand over their mobile phones and electrical devices.

On Wednesday, the AFA said these reports were “entirely false”.

“The subpoena issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida is addressed to a third party, who is required to appear before a Grand Jury and potentially provide documentation and communications related to various individuals, including officials of this Association,” the AFA statement read. “It is absolutely false to claim that Claudio Tapia or Pablo Toviggino have been subpoenaed to testify by the United States Justice system, just as it is false to claim that cell phones or any other electronic devices have been seized from them.”

The FBI and prosecutors are zeroing in on AFA sponsorship payments that were made through TourProdEnter that were believed to have been funneled through several remittance companies in South Florida to the association and its top executives in Argentina for their personal use over the past four years, sources familiar with the investigation told the Herald. Federal authorities routinely target South Florida remittance companies that operate as conduits for unlawful money transfers, especially for drug traffickers, because many are suspected of evading bank-reporting requirements.

Normally, the AFA sponsors’ payments were made directly to the association in Argentina, with a substantial portion of the money then distributed to youth soccer clubs throughout the South American country. But sources said that the traditional payment system changed after Argentina won the Copa America in 2021, leading to the AFA’s relationship with TourProdEnter, the association’s exclusive international commercial agent. It incorporated as a Florida business that August.

Last week, the Herald reported that a network of Miami-Dade firms linked to TourProdEnter received tens of millions of dollars, despite appearing to lack clear business justification. The firms are likely shell companies — they have few or no employees and no apparent business activity, and some operate out of “virtual offices” with no physical presence.

In addition to the federal investigation, the mysterious movements of money are the subject of at least one criminal proceeding in Argentina, according to court records filed in Georgia.

The revelations come as AFA’s president, Tapia, and its treasurer, Toviggino, are already under investigation in Argentina surrounding separate allegations that they misused AFA’s social security contributions.

The Herald’s reporting is based on interviews with law enforcement officials, court filings, and business and corporate records. The transactions the Herald has reviewed are likely not exhaustive and offer only a glimpse into the complex financial movements of AFA funds that took place from late 2021 through 2025.

AFA did not respond to the Herald’s multiple requests for comment. The soccer body has not publicly addressed any of the allegations.

The money trail

A month after Argentina won the Copa America in July 2021, Faroni, an Argentine theater producer with no known experience in sports management, incorporated a Florida company called TourProdEnter LLC.

The firm, operating until recently out of an office in Aventura, became, in December 2021, the AFA’s commercial agent to arrange and collect revenue from international deals.

At least $290 million was deposited in its accounts at various financial institutions in the United States, including Bank of America, Citibank and JPMorgan Chase, a Herald analysis of banking records found.

The deposits reviewed by the Herald were made between November 2022 and August 2025.

Much of it was from broadcast deals, brand sponsorships and match profits.

The revenues are typically then distributed throughout the country’s soccer system from clubs to academies and also used to pay the national squad and operations of AFA.

But TourProdEnter made a series of unusual payments totaling at least $40 million to other Miami companies, according to the records. Those payments are now being investigated by the FBI.

Nearly $30 million went to six firms — Mafer Trading, LLC; Marmasch, LLC; Soagu Services, LLC; Velp, LLC; W Trading, LLC, and Tronador Import & Export, LLC — that list as their address a discreet two-story commercial building on Ives Dairy Road, southeast of Miami Gardens.

But in reality, they have no physical location. The Ives Dairy Road building offers “virtual offices” for $80 a month. The companies are relatively new; five of the six were registered after March 2021. The fifth, W Trading, LLC, was incorporated in late 2018.

TourProdEnter sent a total of roughly $6 million to three other firms — Delker, Inc.; Seriva, Inc., and Ikane, Inc., the records show. The three companies also list a virtual office address at a building in the city of Doral.

The Herald was not able to find any business activities by the nine companies through publicly available information. The Herald also could not find contact information for any of the executives listed in their corporate documents.

TourProdEnter wired an additional $3.5 million to a Uruguayan firm doing business in Florida — Stufer Corporation. It lists as its sole executive Faroni’s business partner, Teodoro Favergiotti, and shares the same Hallandale Beach mailing address as other companies registered to Faroni and his wife, Erica Gillette.

The bank records seen by the Herald do not contain corresponding memos that describe the purpose of the fund transfers. What the companies did with the funds is also unclear.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars were also at times transferred between accounts held by TourProdEnter in different banks within a matter of days, the Herald found.

For instance, the company received $1.4 million in its Bank of America account from another it held at Citibank between April 4, 2024, and April 16, 2024. A week later, it sent $250,000 back to Citibank and another $400,000 to an account it had with JPMorgan Chase.

A few days after that, on May 3, 2024, TourProdEnter sent $1 million from Bank of America to its JPMorgan Chase account and in turn received $250,000 from the same account.

It’s unclear why.

The Herald sent a list of detailed questions to Faroni, Gillette and their attorneys but did not receive any response. The Herald could not find contact information for Favergiotti.

Luxury expenses

There are also inconsistencies in the banking records.

In a 2023 application for a Bank of America credit card, TourProdEnter listed its primary business as “Advertising” but the next year, it was recorded as “Amusement and Recreation Services.” A separate 2023 application to open a business account at Citibank describes the firm as an event producer that also provides logistics and tourism services. None of them mention soccer or the Argentine Football Association.

The Citibank application signed by Gillette in April 2023 states that she is a U.S. citizen. But the Bank of America application four months later states that she is a permanent resident — the official term for holders of green cards.

Banking records show that an account for one of the likely shell companies, Velp, LLC, received nearly $600,000 from TourProdEnter after the state of Florida had already dissolved Velp on Sept. 22, 2023, for failure to file its annual reports.

Nearly three dozen wire transfers totaling roughly $3.6 million from TourProdEnter went to companies that offer private luxury jet services, the Herald found, and more than $1 million went to companies that charter luxury yachts in southern Europe. Nearly $85,000 went to a firm that manages thoroughbred horses and more than $130,000 went to a motorsport company.

The Herald also found that at least one of TourProdEnter’s accounts at Bank of America had credit cards issued to both Faroni and Gillette.

Their expenses from that account ranged from gas, groceries and parking fees to vacations in Rome and purchases at Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton stores in Spain, according to the Herald’s review. TourProdEnter also wired $100,000 in January 2023 to a hair products company of a stylist who owns an upscale salon at the Hilton Bentley in South Beach.

Ten fund transfers totaling nearly $300,000 from TourProdEnter went to Gillette and around $75,000 went to Favergiotti, Faroni’s business partner, between 2023 through 2024. María Florencia Sartirana, partner of AFA treasurer Toviggino, also received $40,000 in the same period, the records show.

TourProdEnter’s monetary transactions with U.S.-based companies drew the attention of federal law enforcement, the Herald has learned. No charges have been filed.

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