[6] After democracy returned to Argentina, he opened a hardware store, Distribuidora America, in the town of San Martin, and completed his degree in economics at the Argentine University of Business (UADE).

[8] Moreno was linked with economists Eduardo Curia, Pablo Challú, and Daniel Carbonetto and with union leader Omar Viviani.

“But in general, what he says, goes.” Moreno's “methodology is intimidation,” the FT added, noting that “he has been rumoured in the past to carry a gun and he took boxing gloves to a meeting of shareholders of a key newsprint company in which the state has a stake in a bid to show who was boss.” The newsprint company was Papel Prensa SA, which is controlled by Grupo Clarín SA, Argentina's largest media conglomerate.

[5] The FT maintained that “many businessmen prefer silence to crossing with him – perhaps remembering Martín Lousteau, a former economy minister, who defied him over farm export tariffs.

[9][13] Moreno's removal of Bevacqua from her post, and his firing of other officials who refused to understate the inflation rate, made him the target of nationwide criticism.

[17] Bevacqua recalled in a 2009 interview that Moreno had called her into his office on May 29, 2006, and had angrily criticized her statistical methodology and accused her of being “unpatriotic” for not disclosing to him the requested details about the inflation rate.

After leaving INDEC, Bevacqua recounted, she was unable to find other work because of pressure exerted by her superiors, apparently on orders from Kirchner and Moreno.

[20] The Telegraph reported in October 2013 that Moreno had ordered major Argentine retailers the previous February not to advertise in media owned by Clarín, or in La Nación and Perfil.

[27] and it has often been argued that he exerts far more influence in national politics than would be reasonably expected, considering his office as a Secretary, formally subordinated to the Minister of Economics.

Todesca had been economy vice-minister under Eduardo Duhalde and was one of more than a dozen experts whom Moreno had fined 500,000 pesos apiece in 2010 for disseminating a version of the Consumer Price Index that differed from the official CPI.

[33] Bloomberg News noted in late 2013 that despite his legal troubles, Moreno's annual income had increased during that year by 26 percent to 2.26 million pesos.

Cascales is described as having her “own place” in the constellation of “K power,” and as having “managed to establish a personal relationship with the President” and won “trust…in the first circle of Kirchner power.” Cascales has been deputy director of the state-owned firms Energy Argentina SA (Enarsa) and Soluciones Satelitales Argentinas SA, and served as notary in Néstor Kirchner's establishment of Meldorek SA and in the formation of several other businesses; she also helped produce the TV miniseries The Pact, which presents the relationship between the Clarín media empire, the largest media conglomerate in Argentina, and the various anti-Peronist military dictatorships.