Argentine Judge Dismisses $LIBRA Crypto Case Against President Milei

An Argentine federal judge has dismissed the criminal case against President Javier Milei over his promotion of the $LIBRA memecoin, ruling that the events reported to the court are not a crime.

Judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi, of Federal Criminal and Correctional Court No. 8, issued the ruling on Friday 23 October at the request of prosecutor Eduardo Taiano. It also covers Milei’s sister Karina Milei, the general secretary of the presidency, and nine others, among them the US businessman Hayden Davis, who was linked to the token’s launch, and the businessman Mauricio Novelli. Perfil, which says it had access to the 60-page ruling, reports that the judge found the facts “fit no legal offence”. He also recorded that the case “does not affect the good name and honour” of the 11 people investigated. The quotations are TSN translations.

Milei’s office welcomed the decision. In an official statement, the Oficina del Presidente said the ruling ended “a sad media circus” and that the court had found the president “INNOCENT”. It asked who would answer for spending public money on what it called “a failed attempt at an institutional coup”.

The post that started the case

On 14 February 2025, Milei promoted $LIBRA on X. “The world wants to invest in Argentina. $LIBRA,” he wrote, according to the Buenos Aires Times, and he deleted the post hours later as the token’s value crashed. Perfil says the price rose from cents to nearly $5 before collapsing.

Milei has denied promoting the token. The BBC reports that he said he acted “in good faith”, that he “merely shared it”, and that he did not know the details of the project at the time. Critics and some industry experts have described the episode as a “rug pull”, in which promoters draw in buyers and then cash out. That was an allegation, and the court has now found no crime.

What the ruling says, according to Perfil

According to Perfil, the ruling itself records that a few wallets withdrew about US$100m and that more than 40,000 buyers lost money. None of the 11 people was ever called to give a statement as a suspect. Perfil says the judge held that this step was not needed, because anyone under suspicion has a right to a ruling that clears them for good.

On fraud, the judge agreed with the prosecutor that no “criminally relevant deception” had been proved, Perfil reports. The project existed, the companies were real, the transactions were recorded on the blockchain and nobody had promised returns. The president’s post may have given the token visibility, the judge wrote, but that was not a trick to deceive buyers. Perfil says the ruling went further and compared the post to a president attending a factory opening.

The judge also rejected the abuse-of-authority allegation against Milei. The Buenos Aires Times reports that he found the post had not come with administrative acts or the use of state resources. Perfil adds that the ruling relied on an Oficina Anticorrupción finding that the post, made from a personal account, was not an act of government. On Karina Milei, the judge found insufficient evidence that she had been paid for arranging meetings. “Facilitating a contact or helping to organise a meeting does not, in itself, amount to influence peddling,” he wrote, in the Buenos Aires Times’ translation.

The case had also weakened abroad. The Buenos Aires Times reports that a New York court rejected a US class action against those behind $LIBRA at first instance in September, citing legal deficiencies in the filing. Perfil says the ruling cited that 29 September decision, along with a US Justice Department decision to close Argentina’s request for help.

The ruling closes the case, not every question

The decision is narrower than the presidency’s statement suggests. A dismissal on the grounds that the facts are not a crime is not a finding at trial, and this one came before anyone was questioned as a suspect. Perfil reports that the ruling itself accepts a weakness in the evidence. An internal inquiry found that an employee of DATIP, the prosecution’s technology unit, had improperly accessed confidential case material. The judge said that damaged the chain of custody and weakened the reports, which contained some of the most sensitive findings. He also set aside chats deleted from Novelli’s phone and an unsigned offer from Davis’s company, Kelsier, which spoke of an “indirect association” with the government.

Critics’ version of events has not gone away. Perfil notes that a congressional inquiry led by opposition deputies described a “planned fraud scheme” in a 205-page report in November 2025. The inquiry counted 114,410 wallets with losses and 36 that each gained more than $1m. According to Perfil, the ruling does not mention that report. The Buenos Aires Times adds that the dismissal ends the criminal investigation unless it is successfully challenged.

Why an appeal looks unlikely

The ruling can still be appealed. But Perfil says the prosecutor asked for the dismissal and so will not appeal, and no plaintiffs remain. The judge removed the victims’ representatives as plaintiffs on 3 July, at the defence’s request, and an appeals chamber upheld that on 4 September. The judge himself wrote that no independent accusation remains to sustain the case, Perfil reports. Infobae, which also read the ruling, reports that complaints from the excluded plaintiffs are still waiting to be decided by the Federal Court of Cassation. Whether those can revive the case is unclear.

Crypto cases elsewhere

Other authorities have moved against crypto promoters in recent weeks. New York has secured nearly $6m from NovaTech scam promoters and settled with former Celsius chief Alex Mashinsky. Turkey has confirmed the detention of Hex founder Richard Heart, and a US Justice Department unit has listed $938m in scam crypto as restrained.

In Argentina, the outcome is the reverse. Buyers lost money, the court found no crime, and with no plaintiffs left to appeal, the case is close to final.

TSN tracks crypto crime and enforcement cases on its Crypto Hacks and Exploits hub.

Sources

• Oficina del Presidente de la Nación, Comunicado Oficial N°171, 23 October 2026 (in Spanish)
• Perfil, “Causa $LIBRA: las claves del fallo que sobreseyó a Javier y Karina Milei sin una sola indagatoria”, 23 October 2026 (in Spanish)
• Infobae, “La Justicia sobreseyó al presidente Javier Milei y a su hermana Karina en la causa $LIBRA”, 23 October 2026 (in Spanish)
• Buenos Aires Times, “Court clears Milei siblings in $LIBRA cryptocurrency case”, 23 October 2026
• BBC News, “Argentina drops investigation into President Milei over crypto fraud”, 23 October 2026

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