Judge clears Javier and Karina Milei in $LIBRA crypto case
The federal judge closed the investigation into the cryptocurrency without calling any of the eleven defendants to testify, after the prosecutor asked for dismissal.
A federal judge in Argentina, Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi, dismissed the $LIBRA cryptocurrency case on Friday against President Javier Milei and his sister Karina, who runs the presidential General Secretariat.
Nine other defendants are covered too, among them lobbyist Mauricio Novelli and Hayden Davis, the coin's creator. None of the eleven had been summoned to give testimony before the judge, and prosecutor Eduardo Taiano had asked for the case to be closed.
The judge found that the facts do not fit any criminal offense. He acknowledged that Milei's post on X may have given the coin "a particular reach and visibility," but found no concrete deception. On the effect of that post, he wrote:
"It is not enough to say that the publicity created favorable expectations."
Karina Milei's situation was settled on the same terms. The ruling does not consider it proven that she asked for or took money to arrange meetings with the president, and it says nothing shows that money from $LIBRA trades reached any official.
Loose ends remain in the case file. A forensic report logs calls between Milei and Novelli, some on the day the coin launched, without establishing what was said. Two deleted conversations turned up with a contact saved as "Karina Milei RRPP," and Novelli's safe-deposit boxes were empty when investigators raided them. On the handling of confidential documents, the judge conceded that "there was no rigorous control over the work produced."
$LIBRA is the cryptocurrency Milei promoted on social media. Its value collapsed after an early surge, and the case examined a suspected fraud in its launch. U.S. authorities closed their own file for lack of evidence.
For Milei, a close ally of Donald Trump in Latin America, the dismissal ends the criminal case in which he was a defendant. For people who lost money on the coin, the criminal route stays shut unless the ruling is reversed. One of them, who had asked to join the case as a plaintiff, claimed losses of $1.77 million after investing on Feb. 14, 2025.
