A federal judge dismissed fraud charges against Javier Milei on Oct. 23, 20261. The case centered on LIBRA, a memecoin he once promoted. Judge Marcelo Martínez De Giorgi cleared all 11 people under investigation. The cleared defendants included Milei's sister, Karina Milei, and American crypto promoter Hayden Davis. Milei answered two hours later, on X4. He named five journalists and called them paid liars.
What the Judge Actually Cleared
Martínez De Giorgi's ruling cleared Milei of fraud, of abuse of authority and of misusing public resources1. Prosecutor Eduardo Taiano had asked for the dismissal first, under a code section covering acts that fit zero crime. The judge agreed with him.
His reasoning drew a sharp line. “The prominence of the person promoting an asset, the public attention surrounding its launch, or the trust their involvement may inspire do not, in themselves, constitute a fraudulent scheme,” Martínez De Giorgi wrote2. A president's pull on a price, by that reading, still needs proof of deception to become a crime.
Milei's own office framed the ruling as total vindication. “For the first time in history, a President of the Nation was investigated with complete freedom, resulting in absolute proof of his innocence,” the presidential office posted on X on Oct. 23, 2026, Al Jazeera reported8.
Eleven people walked free under that ruling. Milei and Karina Milei headed the list. Hayden Davis, the Kelsier Ventures promoter who helped launch LIBRA, was cleared alongside them, plus eight more defendants1. The judge cleared Karina Milei of taking payment to influence her brother, the core claim behind the original complaint2.
An appeal keeps the case from closing outright. Investors who lost money in LIBRA's crash have asked a cassation court to reopen it1.
What LIBRA's Collapse Actually Cost
Milei posted his LIBRA endorsement on Feb. 14, 2025, calling it a private venture meant to fund small Argentine businesses. LIBRA's market cap hit $4.56 billion that night, at 22:30 UTC, KuCoin News reported3. Milei deleted the post within hours and claimed the risk caught him off guard.
LIBRA lost 94 percent of that value within 11 hours, falling to $257 million3. Eight wallets tied to the project's team cashed out $107 million in the same window, KuCoin's on-chain review found. LIBRA's design made the exit easy: 82 percent of its supply sat unlocked and sellable from launch. More than 40,000 investors lost money, by KuCoin's count.
LIBRA Fell From $4.56 Billion to $257 Million, Feb. 14-15, 2025
LIBRA's market capitalization before and after its crash, in millions of US dollars
- Peak, 22:30 UTC
- 11 hours later
Source: KuCoin News [3].
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Peak, 22:30 UTC | 11 hours later |
|---|---|---|
| LIBRA market cap | $4,560M | $257M |
Circle froze $57 million in USDC tied to the scandal in May 2025, months after the crash1. That freeze sits apart from Friday's ruling, which answered the criminal question alone.
Why the Word "Ensobrados" Matters
Argentine law treats calumnia and injuria, slander and libel, as separate claims from a fraud charge. A person accused of taking a bribe can sue over the accusation itself, apart from whatever happens in the original case. "Ensobrado" names exactly that accusation: a source paid in cash, inside an envelope, to write a story on command.
Milei's post carried that word toward five people with bylines, apart from the people who actually ran LIBRA. The word implies a specific crime, bribery of a journalist, and Argentine courts have heard that claim before, with mixed results. A plaintiff still needs to show a payment, a middleman or a document. The LIBRA ruling itself found that same proof absent on the fraud side.
Milei Names Five Journalists
Milei's post came at 22:09 UTC on Oct. 23, 2026, roughly two hours after the ruling4. He opened with a question, translated here from Spanish: “Who compensates me now for a year, eight months and nine days of lies, slander and insults seeking to stain my good name and honor?”
The post then turned to the press. Still in translation: “To the paid-off journalists, mercenaries of lies and serial manufacturers of operations, like Hugo Alconada Mon, Carlos Pagni, Paulino Rodríguez, Natalia Volosín, Novaresio and everyone else who used this subject: who takes responsibility now for all the garbage they spread?”4 Milei attached zero payment, zero document and zero bank record to the word "ensobrados," Spanish slang for a bribed source.
Alconada Mon edits La Nación's investigative unit4. Milei blamed that paper by name in the same post, accusing it of seeking to "extort the government" over tax matters. Pagni writes a politics column for the same paper5.
Novaresio hosts a radio program and has covered Argentine politics for two decades5.
Volosín answered within three hours. “I will evaluate starting the corresponding civil and criminal legal actions against the President of the Nation for the slander and libel I have been subjected to,” she wrote on X at 00:29 UTC on Oct. 246.
Milei's LIBRA Post Drew 28,557 Likes, Oct. 24, 2026
Engagement on Milei's X post naming five journalists, raw counts as of 05:06 UTC Oct. 24
- Likes: 28,557
- Replies & quotes: 4,170
Source: X [4].
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Likes | 28,557 |
| Replies & quotes | 4,170 |
The Case For, and the Case Against
Milei's own case rests on the word "operación," an operation. "La Justicia volvió a poner las cosas en su lugar," he wrote, translated: “Justice put things back in their place, and a tremendous political and media operation aimed only at damaging the presidential office for coup-seeking political ends was exposed”4. By his account, a court cleared him of a crime, so the reporting that followed the case for 20 months stands exposed as false.
FOPEA, Argentina's journalism forum, answered within a day7. “El Estado tiene la obligación de proteger a los periodistas, no de convertirlos en blanco,” the group said. Translated: “The State has the obligation to protect journalists, not to turn them into a target.” FOPEA drew a second distinction, also translated: “Reporting on that case was a legitimate exercise of journalism on a matter of obvious public interest, rather than an operation.”
Each side needs something different to hold up. Milei needs a reader to treat a dismissed fraud charge as proof the underlying claims were always false. FOPEA needs a reader to separate the criminal verdict from the reporting that covered a token's 94 percent crash and its 40,000 harmed investors. The ruling settled one question. A second question stayed open.
By the numbers
- 11 people were cleared in Argentina's LIBRA case on Oct. 23, 2026, Milei and Karina Milei among them1.
- $4.56 billion was LIBRA's peak market cap at 22:30 UTC on Feb. 14, 2025, after Milei's endorsement3.
- 94 percent of that value vanished within 11 hours, as LIBRA's price fell to $257 million3.
- Eight insider wallets pulled $107 million in that same window, KuCoin News found3.
- Five journalists got named "ensobrados" in Milei's post: Alconada Mon, Pagni, Rodríguez, Volosín and Novaresio4.
- 28,557 likes and 4,170 replies and quote posts sat under that post as of 05:06 UTC on Oct. 24, 2026, by X's own count4.
- $57 million in USDC tied to the scandal got frozen by Circle in May 20251.
What to watch
Watch the cassation court that holds the investors' appeal. A reversal there would reopen the criminal question the ruling just closed. Watch FOPEA's count of press attacks tied to the case, the group's usual way of tracking an escalation. Volosín's own promise matters too. She said this week she would decide on a lawsuit, and a filing would test Milei's bribery claim under oath rather than on X.
Sources
- "Judge Shuts LIBRA Case Against Javier Milei, Ruling the Memecoin Facts Fit No Crime," Unchained, Oct. 23, 2026, https://unchainedcrypto.com/judge-shuts-libra-case-against-javier-milei-ruling-the-memecoin-facts-fit-no-crime/
- Vanesa Petrillo, "Milei and his sister Karina cleared in $LIBRA crypto scandal," Buenos Aires Herald, Oct. 23, 2026, https://buenosairesherald.com/politics/milei-and-his-sister-karina-cleared-in-libra-crypto-scandal
- "From $4.56B Peak to 94% Crash: Milei's LIBRA Endorsement Triggers $107M Insider Exit," KuCoin News, Feb. 17, 2025, https://www.kucoin.com/news/articles/from-4-56b-peak-to-94-crash-milei-s-libra-endorsement-triggers-107m-insider-exit
- Javier Milei, post on X, Oct. 23, 2026, https://x.com/JMilei/status/2113754784243052838
- "Milei habló tras el sobreseimiento por la causa $LIBRA: "¿Quién me compensa por un año y ocho meses de mentiras?"," La Nación, Oct. 23, 2026, https://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/milei-hablo-tras-el-sobreseimiento-por-la-causa-libra-quien-me-compensa-por-un-ano-y-ocho-meses-de-nid23102026/
- Natalia Volosín, post on X, Oct. 24, 2026, https://x.com/nataliavolosin/status/2113789835429179594
- Redacción Cadena 3, "FOPEA denunció una escalada de violencia "sin precedentes" de Milei contra los periodistas," Cadena 3, Oct. 24, 2026, https://www.cadena3.com/noticia/politica-y-economia/fopea-denuncio-una-escalada-de-violencia-sin-precedentes-de-milei-contra-los-periodistas_606661
- Al Jazeera and Reuters, "Argentinian judge drops fraud investigation into Milei over crypto scandal," Al Jazeera, Oct. 24, 2026, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/24/argentinian-judge-drops-fraud-investigation-into-milei-over-crypto-scandal