At the federal courts in Buenos Aires known as Comodoro Py, Judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi on Friday dismissed the criminal case over the LIBRA token against President Javier Milei, his sister Karina Milei and nine others, Clarín and La Nación reported. Karina Milei is secretary general of the presidency.
The decision is a sobreseimiento, a ruling that closes a criminal case for the people named before any trial. The judge granted a request from prosecutor Eduardo Taiano and relied on article 336(3) of the national criminal procedure code, which applies when the facts investigated do not constitute a crime, according to Perfil, which said it had seen the 60-page resolution. Perfil noted that the ruling can still be appealed.
“The reported events do not fall under a legal category.”
Judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi, as quoted by the BBC
The ruling also covers Hayden Davis, the American businessman behind the token’s launch; Julian Peh (Chyi Haur Peh) of Kip Protocol; businessmen Mauricio Novelli and Manuel Terrones Godoy; Sergio Morales, a former adviser to the securities regulator, the CNV; Camilo Rodríguez Blanco and Orlando Mellino; and two of Novelli’s relatives, María Alicia Rafaele and María Pia Novelli, Clarín reported. The judge found no “criminally relevant deception” had been proven, the BBC reported.
What the prosecutor argued
Taiano argued there was no fraud because the project existed, the token was actually issued and its trades were public and traceable on the blockchain, according to Clarín. Buyers’ losses “are not sufficient, on their own, to constitute fraud,” he wrote, in our translation of the resolution as quoted by Clarín. He described memecoins as a highly volatile, speculative market and said those investigated never guaranteed returns or a stable price.
He also leaned on three outside findings, Clarín reported. The US Justice Department told Argentine investigators the evidence gathered was insufficient for the assistance requested.
A New York federal court dismissed a civil suit against Davis in late September. And Argentina’s Anti-Corruption Office concluded that Milei posted from a personal account, not in an official capacity.
Taiano said evidence from Novelli’s phone carried reduced weight after failures in the chain of custody and leaks to the press, Clarín reported. On Karina Milei, he found nothing in the file to support claims that she was paid to arrange meetings with her brother, according to the same report.
How the case began
On 14 Feb 2025, Milei posted about LIBRA on X and shared the token’s contract address, Perfil reported. Its price rose from a couple of cents to nearly $5 before collapsing within hours, according to Clarín. Complaints filed in court said a small group of wallets withdrew about $100 million and that more than 40,000 buyers lost money; Perfil stressed these were lines of inquiry, not facts proven in court.
Milei has denied wrongdoing. “I didn’t promote it, I merely shared it,” he said in a television interview, the BBC reported. In New York, Judge Jennifer Rochon dismissed the US class action over the token on 29 Sep, as CryptoWatchDesk reported in a US judge’s dismissal of the LIBRA class action.
Milei welcomed the ruling on X, Perfil reported, as did presidential adviser Santiago Caputo.
Risks: for buyers who lost money, the criminal route in Argentina now looks narrow. In July the same judge removed five investors from the case as complainants, and Clarín noted that this leaves only the prosecutor, who asked for the dismissal, able to appeal. The ruling settles the legal position of the 11 people named; it does not trace every LIBRA transfer, Perfil noted.
What to watch: whether any party lodges an appeal, and whether the political fallout shifts after a ruling that Perfil describes as limited to the facts in this court’s file. For Argentina’s wider crypto rules, see Argentina’s central bank keeping crypto out of banks this year.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.