Argentine President Milei Hit With Fraud Charges Over LIBRA Cryptocurrency: Report

Argentine President Javier Milei faces fraud expenses over his promotion of the LIBRA cryptocurrency, which soared above a $4 billion market cap minutes after launching on Friday earlier than crashing spectacularly simply hours later.

The costs, filed Sunday in an Argentine prison court docket, had been introduced by attorneys and political opponents of Milei, together with former head of the Argentine Central Financial institution Claudio Lozano, in response to the Associated Press.

The grievance alleges that the group behind the LIBRA cryptocurrency—a cryptocurrency funding firm often called Kelsier Ventures and its CEO Hayden Davis—dedicated “an indeterminate variety of frauds” with Milei’s involvement.

“Inside this illicit affiliation, the crime of fraud was dedicated, during which the president’s actions had been important,” Jonatan Baldiviezo, a lawyer and one of many plaintiffs, instructed the AP.

Milei initially promoted the LIBRA token on his X account late Friday together with a hyperlink to the Viva La Libertad Mission web site. “This personal mission can be devoted to encouraging the expansion of the Argentine financial system by funding small Argentine companies and startups,” Milei mentioned in a since-deleted submit.

The Argentine president’s submit despatched shockwaves throughout the crypto business, harking back to US President Donald Trump’s shock meme coin launch in late December, as merchants and observers alike tried to find out the legitimacy of the mission and Milei’s submit.

Crypto analytics companies equivalent to Bubblemaps and Chainalysis raised alarms simply after LIBRA’s launch, noting a number of purple flags with the mission. Particularly, Bubblemaps revealed 82% of the availability of the LIBRA token was held by single cluster of wallets, that means {that a} single particular person—or a gaggle of related people—managed the overwhelming majority of the availability.

As issues mounted, merchants offered off positions, and the token crashed by 89% in worth, Bubblemaps claimed the group behind the mission “cashed out,” eradicating some $87 million in USDC and SOL, the native token of the Solana community, from liquidity swimming pools that serviced the token.

Then, as LIBRA imploded, President Milei deleted his authentic submit and adopted up with one other disavowing the mission.

“Just a few hours in the past I posted a tweet, as I’ve numerous instances earlier than, supporting an alleged personal enterprise with which I clearly haven’t any connection,” he wrote within the submit. “I wasn’t knowledgeable of the mission’s particulars, and after studying about them I made a decision to not proceed selling it (that’s why I deleted the tweet).” The token subsequently tanked additional, dropping greater than 96% of its worth from its peak value.

The mea culpa was apparently not sufficient to fulfill the group of attorneys now in search of to carry Milei accountable for his actions. An Argentine court docket is anticipated to assign a choose to the case or refer it to a prosecutor on Monday, the AP reported.