Argentina drops investigation into President Milei over crypto fraud

LIBRA launched in February 2025 as a Solana-based memecoin that Javier Milei endorsed on X, triggering a brief price spike before he deleted the post and the token collapsed, wiping out most of a roughly $99 million capitalization. Criminal complaints followed in Argentina naming Milei, his sister Karina and Kelsier Ventures' Hayden Davis, while investors also filed a class action in New York. A separate congressional inquiry later examined Milei's role in the launch.

With Judge Martínez de Giorgi's dismissal, Milei, Karina Milei and Davis face no criminal trial in Argentina over LIBRA, and the ruling extends to eight other defendants. Investors who lost money have no domestic criminal avenue left to pursue restitution, mirroring the September dismissal of the New York class action. Former plaintiffs retain only the option to appeal, while Davis and the Kelsier Ventures team avoid further Argentine legal exposure tied to the token's collapse.

The ruling exposes a gap between criminal fraud thresholds and political accountability: a judge found no criminally relevant deception, yet a parliamentary investigation concluded Milei played an essential role in promoting the token and drawing in investors. Critics calling the dismissal a cover-up are pressing a genuine question, not a settled one, about whether existing fraud statutes can reach a head of state's social-media endorsement of a speculative asset that crashes within hours.

Whether this closes the matter depends on the appeal some former plaintiffs are still pursuing, since the judge's finding that the facts fit no crime does not foreclose further review. A successful appeal would reopen criminal exposure for Milei, Karina Milei and Davis; failure would leave the parliamentary findings as the only formal record of Milei's role, with no further legal consequence in Argentina or the United States. (per beincrypto.com)