Argentina freezes the $100M linked to Javier Milei’s LIBRA coin scam

Argentinian lawmakers have frozen $100 million connected to the President Milei-backed LIBRA meme coin scam that rug pulled investors last month after surging to a $4.5 billion market cap and crashing to 0 in six hours, according to a report from Chalin on Wednesday.

Federal prosecutor Eduardo Taiano is heading the investigation into President Javier Milei and a group of businessmen who have been accused of profiting from the LIBRA rug pull.

Milei had promoted LIBRA via a post on X in February, telling followers that “the world wants to invest in Argentina” to boost small businesses and startups. However, Milei quickly deleted his post, tanking the token in the process.

Argentine prosecutors are not letting Milei get away with a crypto scam

Now, prosecutors are digging into every single transaction linked to LIBRA since its launch. Taiano has demanded full transaction logs to identify who made money and where the funds went. Authorities are also reconstructing all financial movements from February 14 and 15, when LIBRA’s trading volume peaked before its crash.

According to the Chalin report, the investigation has already flagged encrypted crypto wallets used to launder funds. These wallets belonged to a small group of insiders who dumped massive amounts of LIBRA before it tanked, said Taiano.

One of them, Hayden Davis from Kelsier, admitted he walked away with $100 million from the LIBRA scam, as Cryptopolitan reported last month.

Also, Taiano is demanding access to deleted social media posts, including Milei’s X post promoting LIBRA on February 14. Investigators are piecing together the full timeline of the scam, including calls and meetings held by those involved.

Hayden had shared in an interview with Coffeezilla that he was invited to the president’s house in Buenos Aires, where they hung out and mapped out a plan to scam investors apparently. Hayden also said he was able to control Milei by paying his sister, Karina Milei.

Hayden claims President Milei was in on the scam

In an interview with Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy after the scam in February, Hayden also alleged that President Milei was in on the LIBRA scam with them right from the beginning. Hayden added that he was going to hold onto the stolen $100 million as leverage until Milei came clean.

Argentine prosecutors have now ordered phone record reviews and visitor logs from Casa Rosada and Olivos estate, and witnesses are also being called in, including crypto stakeholders and people within Milei’s inner circle who may have known about the plan before it happened, per the Chalin report. Hayden is probably going to be one of them.

Investigators are also following a suspicious $4.5 million transfer from one of the wallets linked to the scheme. A portion of this money was used to purchase a memecoin called POPE, which is suspected to be an attempt at money laundering. Authorities are now tracking the final destination of these funds.

Taiano is also looking into whether the Argentinian Central Bank and National Securities Commission failed to monitor or regulate the project properly, said the Chalin report.

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