Federal judge María Servini de Cubría has requested that Argentina’s Central Bank provide information as to the banking institutions which have or have had accounts in the name of President Javier Milei, his sister, presidential chief-of-staff Karina Milei and three other people under investigation for the scandal over the controversial launch of the ‘$LIBRA’ cryptocurrency last February.
The judge has asked for reports in a reserved writ under trial secrecy to probe the evolution of the assets of the President and his sister in the face of the accusations presented in the investigation delegated to federal prosecutor Eduardo Taiano, court sources have informed, requesting information from 2023 onwards.
This move is added to the 90-day freezes slapped on the assets of three other men indicted in the case – entrepreneur Mauricio Novelli, Sergio Morales, a former advisor to the CNV (Comisión Nacional de Valores), the Argentine equivalent of the Securities & Exchange Commission, and Manuel Terrones Godoy – while the court analyses the situation of their assets, forbidding them from transferring goods or vehicles.
In the case of Novelli, the freeze extends to his mother María Alicia Rafaele and his sister María Pía Novelli after security cameras at a Banco Galicia branch in Martínez where they have safety deposit boxes filmed them entering with empty bags on the morning of February 17 and then departing with the same bags bulging after presumably vacating the safety deposit boxes.
The images which confirm the police report, based on the security cameras at Banco Galicia’s Martínez branch, were broadcast on television on Wednesday night.
Judge Servini ordered a raid on both security safety boxes but they were already empty.
The episode occurred on the first working day after President Milei promoted the launch of the cryptocurrency on the evening of February 14. Regarding the images incorporated into the case from the Federal Police report, the prosecution is analysing if the safety deposit boxes were emptied then upon being found empty when raided several weeks afterwards.
The Federal Police report made by its money-laundering division noted when asked by federal prosecutor Taiano that the mother and sister of Novelli had left the bank with bags "apparently" bulging after requesting access to their safety deposit boxes.
This occurred just a few minutes after the Martínez branch opened at 10am with the images requested from the bank showing the women entering with empty bags and departing with every appearance of "bulging."
“At 11.03:08 am the ladies in question are visualised leaving the branch with both their handbags and rucksacks at the moment of entry apparently bulging more,” read the report according to court sources.
The scandal of the failed cryptocurrency $LIBRA began in the evening of February 14 when President Milei posted a promotion of its appearance on his X social network account.
Milei hailed the $LIBRA memecoin as a "private project" aimed at "stimulating the growth of the Argentine economy, by financing small businesses and Argentine entrepreneurs."
"The world wants to invest in Argentina. $LIBRA," he wrote on the X social network on February 14, in a post he deleted hours later after the currency crashed.
Industry experts have called the operation a "rug pull" – a scam where developers unveil a crypto token, attract investors, then quickly cash out.
$LIBRA went from boom to bust all in the space of an evening. After Milei’s apparent thumbs-up, it soared in value but then plummeted 90 percent within two hours.
The President later claimed he "did not know the details of the project."
– TIMES/NA
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