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Sujha Sundararajan
Author
Sujha Sundararajan
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Javier Milei, President of Argentina, is facing fraud charges for promoting fake crypto coin dubbed LIBRA. Local lawyers have filed case against the libertarian leader in criminal court on Sunday.
Milei, on Friday, promoted the little-known crypto on X, which rapidly surged to a market capitalization of about $4.5 billion. At the time, the President noted that LIBRA was aimed at “encouraging economic growth by funding small businesses and startups.”
“It turned out to be real as multiple other Argentinian politicians posted the news,” Kobeissi Letter posted on X.
However, the post was deleted within hours, causing the value of the token to collapse, in a classic rug pull. The plunge caused millions of dollars in losses to its brief investors, according to Dexscreener data.
Hours later, Milei wrote a message that he had no ties to the crypto initiative. “I was not aware of the details of the project and after having become aware of it I decided not to continue spreading it.” The message raised speculation that his account may have been compromised.
Within the first three hours, insiders in LIBRA began cashing out $87.4 million, per data sources Kobeissi Letter and Bubblemaps.
President Office Denies Milei’s Crypto Involvement
In a statement on Saturday, the President’s Office emphasized that Milei was not involved in any stage of crypto promotion and decided to remove the post to avoid speculation.
One of the President’s Plaintiffs and a lawyer Jonatan Baldiviezo told the AP that there is an illicit association to perform “an indeterminate number of frauds.”
“Within this illicit association, the crime of fraud was committed, in which the president’s actions were essential.”
Two lawyers including Baldiviezo, an engineer and economist Claudio Lozano, who previously presided over the Argentine Central Bank, have signed the petition against Milei.
The plaintiffs said that the President’s actions were a rug pull operation and that he violated the Public Ethics Law.
Investigations to Start Soon
Per the AP report, a judge will be assigned to the case by the criminal justice on Monday, for further investigations. Additionally, Argentina’s Anti-Corruption Office would act immediately, the President’s Office confirmed.
“All the information gathered in the investigation will be handed over to the judiciary to determine if any of the companies or individuals linked to the KIP Protocol project committed a crime,” said the Milei administration.
Further, according to the statements from the administration, the President met with representatives of KIP Protocol at his office recently.
Hayden Mark Davis, one of KIP Protocol’s representatives, blamed Milei for LIBRA’s collapse “despite prior commitments,” in a video, Saturday.
