Lawyer imitated Better Call Saul and was caught for leading a gang that staged fake car accidents.

Matías Giovanelli gained fame on social media by parodying the lawyer from Breaking Bad with videos about traffic accidents. Under the alias "Tu abogado responde", he amassed thousands of followers with legal advice in the style of "everything can be fixed." Now, he has ended up in pretrial detention for leading a gang that staged fake traffic accidents.

As if he had taken notes from Jimmy McGill himself, Giovanelli copied even the first trick from the manual: staging crashes like in the old days of Better Call Saul. Unfortunately, instead of acting with two skaters on skateboards and a fake hit-and-run, he used fake stamps, non-existent law firms, and paid witnesses. He missed the ice container, but he had plenty of nerve: he ended up starring in his own... judicial prequel.

The courts accuse him of defrauding insurance companies through a network that staged crashes to collect false compensation. Judge Ricardo Fraga ordered his transfer to a Buenos Aires prison after the request from prosecutors Claudio Oviedo and Marisa Monti. Giovanelli was not accompanied by likes or algorithms: he is accompanied by a criminal record.

Alongside the legal influencer, three lawyers and a doctor who were part of the alleged criminal association were also charged. Two of them received house arrest for personal reasons. Meanwhile, Giovanelli and another partner, Juan Carlos Cavallo, will go straight to prison.

A tidy network... until it leaked

The investigation began after a complaint from Federación Patronal, one of the affected insurance companies. The scheme included fake victims, paid witnesses, and forged documents. According to the prosecutors, each "accident" was staged in exchange for payments of up to 200,000 pesos.

One of the key recruiters was Micaela Palmisano, alias "Noelia," currently a fugitive. She was in charge of recruiting people willing to fake accidents. She was exposed by a witness who provided transfers and messages as evidence.

Among the schemes, forgeries of powers of attorney and the use of stolen notary stamps were detected. They even submitted documentation from a phantom law firm whose real address was a hardware store. The details border on the absurd, but the financial damage was real.

From legal influencer to fraud defendant

The Instagram profile "Tu abogado responde" reached more than 129,000 followers. In their videos, Giovanelli and his partner Gastón Tardini presented themselves as experts in traffic claims. They promised quick results and spoke of "more than 5,000 successful cases."

While they showed confidence on camera, behind the scenes, a circuit of complaints with fabricated evidence was being set up. The judge described the actions as a criminally organized structure. He spoke of "fraudulent conduct and multiple thefts" carried out systematically.

Although some defendants were placed under house arrest, the case remains open. The courts do not rule out new charges as the analysis of evidence progresses. The plot, worthy of a script, will still have several judicial chapters ahead.