Argentine judge dismisses the $LIBRA case against Milei at the prosecutor's request, with no one ever questioned and the excluded investors' challenge still pending

An Argentine federal judge on Friday 23 October dismissed the criminal case over the $LIBRA cryptocurrency against President Javier Milei, his sister Karina Milei and nine others. The ruling followed a request from the prosecutor. Judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi of Federal Criminal and Correctional Court No. 8 in Buenos Aires issued a sobreseimiento, a final dismissal, in case CFP 772/2025 "because the reported events do not fit any legal offence" ("en razón de que los sucesos denunciados no encuadran en una figura legal"), according to the resolution. That is a finding that the conduct examined does not amount to a crime under Argentine law. No defendant was ever formally questioned, and the investors who had been complainants in the case were removed from it earlier in the year. Their last challenge is still pending at a higher court, Argentine media reported.

What the judge decided

• Who: the dismissal covers Javier Milei; Karina Milei, Secretary General of the Presidency; Mauricio Novelli and Manuel Terrones Godoy, organisers of an October 2024 Tech Forum in Buenos Aires where, the complainants said, the president first met the token's backers; Sergio Morales, a former adviser to the securities regulator's board; Hayden Davis of Kelsier Ventures, who launched the token; Julian Peh (Chyi Haur Peh) of Kip Network; and four others. All eleven are named in the resolution.
• On whose request: prosecutor Eduardo Taiano asked for the dismissal. The judge wrote that he had reviewed the prosecutor's opinion, found it "duly reasoned", and ruled in line with it "since there is no independent accusing party to sustain the continuation of the proceedings" ("no existe una pretensión acusatoria autónoma que sostenga la continuación del proceso"). The quotes from the resolution, and from Spanish-language outlets below, are WatchfulEye translations from the Spanish originals.
• No questioning: the resolution states that "none of the people investigated were formally questioned" (indagatoria) in the case. It cites earlier appeal-court rulings holding that a judge can dismiss a case without that step.
• The legal formula: the dismissal was issued under article 336, paragraph 3, of the federal criminal procedure code. It includes the standard wording that the proceedings do not affect the defendants' "good name and honour". The resolution orders the case archived only "once final" ("firme que sea").

The reasoning, offence by offence

• Fraud (estafa): the judge agreed with the prosecutor that no "criminally relevant deception" ("engaño penalmente relevante") had been shown. He accepted that the president's role mattered. "The institutional standing of the person who publicised the project may have given it particular reach and visibility," he wrote, but the fame of a promoter or the confidence it inspires "do not, by themselves, amount to a fraudulent scheme" ("no equivalen, por sí solas, a un ardid defraudatorio"). To prove fraud, he wrote, the court would have to identify a specific false statement that led buyers to purchase. A token's rise and crash "cannot serve as sufficient retrospective proof" of fraud.
• Abuse of authority and conflict of interest: the judge found no official act linked to the project. He cited a report from the government's legal and technical secretariat saying it held no resolutions or other administrative actions on the token. He also cited the Anti-Corruption Office, a government body, which concluded that the president's post from his personal X account was not an institutional act and did not breach the public ethics law. "The publication of a message on a social network is not equivalent to taking part in a negotiation," the resolution says.
• Influence peddling (Karina Milei): the only documents linking her to Davis and another businessman, Bartosz Lipinski, are entry authorisations to the presidential palace dated 16 July 2024, the judge wrote. Taken alone, he said, those "do not prove the existence of an unlawful agreement". The Hotel Libertador told the court she was not at the Tech Forum.
• The money: the resolution records the complainants' account that the price rose from about US$0.01 to close to US$5 after the president's post on 14 February 2025, then collapsed within hours. According to that account, a few wallets withdrew about US$100m and more than 40,000 buyers lost value. Davis has acknowledged holding close to $100m after the crash and denies wrongdoing, Reuters reported. The ruling does not say what happened to that money. It says only that the sequence of promotion, rise and fall does not by itself meet the legal test for fraud.

Who was left out, and what is still pending

Investors who bought $LIBRA had been accepted as private complainants (querellantes), parties who can push a case forward on their own. On 3 July the judge granted a request from Novelli's lawyer and removed the five investor complainants, Clarín reported. The resolution cites the federal appeals court (Sala I) ruling of 4 September 2026, issued in that dispute over the complainants' standing. That court found the investors had not identified the specific false statement that led them to buy. In late September the same court declared four investors' appeals to the Federal Court of Cassation inadmissible, and their lawyers said they would file a direct complaint (recurso de queja) with Cassation, iProfesional reported.

Those complaints are still pending at the Cassation court, Infobae reported. La Política Online reported that the case is before the court's Second Chamber. If the investors are restored as complainants, it said, they could appeal the dismissal. WatchfulEye has not seen a Cassation court record confirming the status of those complaints or a date for a decision, so it remains unconfirmed.

How each side responded

After the ruling, Milei posted a line attributed to Epictetus, "truth always triumphs on its own; lies always need complicity", La Política Online reported. He called the case "a media and political operation" against him, Clarín reported. When the coin crashed in 2025, Milei said he had acted "in good faith" and had not known the details of the project, Reuters reported. A lawyer familiar with the case told La Política Online that the outcome was not settled: "No one knows what may happen."

Why it matters

WatchfulEye's read: much of the coverage has described the ruling as clearing the president. The resolution itself is narrower than that. It says a prosecutor and a judge found that the facts gathered do not fit the crimes examined: fraud, abuse of authority, conflict of interest and influence peddling. It did not test those facts at a trial or through formal questioning of any defendant. The case ended without a hearing for the other side because the prosecutor asked for dismissal and the only private parties who could have objected had already been removed. Their right to take part is the question the Cassation court still has to decide. The ruling also does not deal with who received the money withdrawn after the crash, beyond finding that losses alone are not proof of fraud.

What the ruling does and does not settle

• Settled for now: the federal court's finding that the reported events do not fit a criminal offence, for all eleven people named, on the prosecutor's request.
• Not settled: whether the dismissal becomes final, which depends on the pending Cassation complaints, unconfirmed; any separate civil claims. The resolution notes that a US federal court in New York dismissed an investor lawsuit against Kelsier Labs and others on 29 September, citing an unofficial translation filed in the case. A commission set up in Congress by opposition blocs to investigate the case, Infobae reported, is a political body, and its work is not part of this ruling.
• Not examined by any court: testimony from the defendants, since none was formally questioned.

Open questions

• Will the Cassation court hear the investors' complaints, and when?
• If the investors are restored as complainants, will they appeal the dismissal?
• Will Milei or the presidency issue a formal statement beyond the president's posts?