President Milei shuts down Argentina unit investigating $LIBRA crypto scandal

Argentina’s President Javier Milei has dissolved the Investigative Task Unit (UTI), a Justice Ministry office created just three months earlier to probe the “cryptogate” scandal surrounding the $LIBRA cryptocurrency and Milei’s own role in promoting it. The decision, formalized in Decree 332/2025 and published in the Official Gazette, was signed by Milei and Justice Minister Mariano Cúneo Libarona, and argues that the unit had completed its mandate because all gathered information had been forwarded to the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The UTI had been led by senior Justice Ministry official María Florencia Zicavo and drew on inputs from multiple state bodies, including the Anti-Corruption Office, Central Bank, Financial Information Unit, securities regulator CNV and tax authority ARCA. The UTI was originally established on February 19, 2025, just days after the launch of $LIBRA, a memecoin that briefly moved more than US$4.5 billion in volume before collapsing in value, leaving investors with estimated losses of at least US$250 million. $LIBRA had been promoted by Milei on his personal social media on February 14 as a private initiative to finance small businesses and entrepreneurs, but experts and plaintiffs have described the operation as a “rug pull” and have accused him of deceptive promotion, negligence and conflicts of interest. Although the presidency now says the UTI’s work is done, no official findings from the unit have been made public, while parallel probes continue in Argentina’s courts and anti-corruption bodies, as well as in a U.S. class-action lawsuit. The shutdown has therefore become part of a wider political and legal battle over presidential accountability, investor protection and how Argentina regulates high‑profile crypto schemes linked to senior officials.

✨ AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

More coverage

• Milei Shuts Down Unit Probing $LIBRA Crypto Scandal - Binance (binance.com)
• Milei Shuts Down Argentina Unit Investigating Crypto Scandal (bloomberg.com)
• $LIBRA scandal: leaked evidence shows calls incriminating Milei in ... (buenosairesherald.com)
• $Libra cryptocurrency scandal - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

Explore the topic

• Argentina
• Libra