Milei and his sister Karina cleared in $LIBRA crypto scandal

Federal Judge Marcelo Martínez De Giorgi on Friday dismissed the charges against President Javier Milei, Presidential Chief of Staff Karina Milei, and nine other defendants in the case investigating the launch and subsequent collapse of the $LIBRA cryptocurrency.

The judge determined that the reported events did not fit the legal definition of a criminal offense, ruling in line with the request submitted by prosecutor Eduardo Taiano.

The crypto scandal erupted in early 2025 when the Argentine president promoted a token that plummeted hours later, leaving thousands of investors with losses totalling millions of dollars.

Developers of $LIBRA allegedly withdrew around US$100 million from the project during this period, prompting accusations that the operation was a “pump and dump” scheme, as well as allegations of insider trading.

In addition to the Milei siblings, the judge’s decision covers the other people investigated, including Argentine crypto entrepreneurs Mauricio Novelli and Manuel Terrones Godoy, and Hayden Mark Davis, the United States crypto expert considered the key promoter of $LIBRA.

In his ruling, Martínez de Giorgi concluded that all the defendants should be dismissed from the case because the prosecutor’s opinion held that there was no evidence warranting the continuation of the proceedings.

Deception was not proven

One of the key issues in the case was determining whether the public promotion of $LIBRA, its initial price surge and its subsequent collapse, were part of an organized scheme intended to harm buyers.

The complaint alleged that a message posted by Milei on his official X account on February 14, 2025, had driven up the token’s price, which rose from an initial value of approximately one cent to nearly five dollars before collapsing.

According to the allegations, wallets linked to the project’s promoters had withdrawn around US$100 million, while more than 40,000 buyers suffered losses.

However, the prosecution argued that an adverse financial outcome was not sufficient to establish fraud. Its analysis maintained that it was necessary to demonstrate what the specific deception had been, how it had misled buyers, and how it had prompted their investment decisions.

The judge adopted that reasoning, noting that the president’s promotion may have had a significant influence on the project’s public exposure, but that this circumstance alone did not establish the existence of a fraudulent scheme.

In this regard, the ruling stated: “The prominence of the person promoting an asset, the public attention surrounding its launch, or the trust their involvement may inspire do not, in themselves, constitute a fraudulent scheme.”

The judge added that it was necessary to identify which aspect of the project or its operation had been presented deceptively, or what relevant information had allegedly been withheld.

“The mere sequence of events involving the promotion, the increase in the token’s price, and its subsequent decline does not, in itself, demonstrate that this trajectory had been organized in advance for fraudulent purposes,” the ruling stated.

The judge also cited a precedent set by the Federal Court of Appeals, which had warned that the initial theory of an organized scheme orchestrated from the highest levels of government had weakened when assessed against the legal requirements for establishing fraud.

Originally published in Ambito

La entrada Milei and his sister Karina cleared in $LIBRA crypto scandal se publicó primero en Buenos Aires Herald.