$Libra case: the team behind its launch is reported to have started "laundering" part of the money it earned

Following the scandal over the $Libra case, it is now claimed that insiders of the launch involving President Javier Milei made new moves to launder part of the funds obtained . First, they moved US$4.5 million from one of the four wallets linked to the $Libra scandal to a new one. Then, with part of that money, they carried out operations with another memecoin to “launder” part of those funds .

According to two accounts specialized in tracking crypto-asset investments, the team behind the launch of $Libra -and also the memecoin Melania- would have started to “launder” part of the money that, according to Hayden Davis, the brain behind $Libra, was “from Argentina”. According to blockchain specialist Fernando Molina, yesterday at 4:37 p.m. -Argentina time-, one of the wallets of the team associated with the launch of $LIBRA moved around US$4.5 million to a new wallet.

Cryptocurrency advisor $LIBRA said Javier Milei had guaranteed "public support"

Twitter Hayden Mark Davis

“This is the first time we have seen movements since February 14,” Molina said on social media X. “The movement we saw today in one of the $Libra wallets is possibly part of a larger operation to launder insider money,” the specialist highlighted.

According to what the Lookonchain account was able to track, that would be exactly the case. “It seems that the internal $Libra and $Melania team is laundering funds,” the account noted. “They spent 19,846 $Sol (US$2.76M) to buy a memecoin (Pope) with a market cap of less than US$150K and sold it for 175 $Sol (US$24K), losing US$2.73M. That US$2.73M was effectively funneled to other wallets in a “legal” manner! ”

Molina explained the operation to La Nación : “First, the wallet with dirty money buys any memecoin with little movement (it doesn’t even have to have been launched by them). At the same time, another wallet of theirs not linked to the previous ones previously buys this same memecoin . Then, this wallet that previously bought the token sells them and takes the money from the liquidity pool that the first wallet inserted when it bought it.”

In other words, the money is transferred from the “dirty wallet,” with links to the scandal project, to a “clean” one , through a transaction with a memecoin – in this case POPE. “It is a common practice to launder money [in this sector],” said Molina. “If they had been more careful, they could have done it from several wallets with lower amounts.”

President Javier Milei was involved in a scandal when he promoted $LIBRA, accused of fraud

Web

“The $Libra and $Melania boys did black magic with the money: they grabbed 2.76M in $Sol, bought an irrelevant memecoin with a market cap of 150K and sold it for just 24K. Result? A 'loss' of 2.73M that actually ended up in other clean wallets,” explained specialist Santiago Siri. He added: “ It's a classic of crypto laundering : they inflate the volume, make it look like a legitimate operation and move the money without the token popping up so easily. If you see insiders making absurd trades like this, they're not losing money... they're hiding it.”

The recent movements of the crypto were disclosed almost two weeks after the scandal began . $Libra was launched on Friday afternoon, the 14th, when Milei published a post from her X account in which she “spread” (in her own words) the cryptocurrency . “Liberal Argentina grows!!! This private project will be dedicated to encouraging the growth of the Argentine economy, funding small Argentine businesses and startups. The world wants to invest in Argentina. $Libra” , the president posted, along with a link to the project in which the token is promoted.

Tweet milei libra.jpg

Seconds later, a flurry of purchases were recorded and the crypto asset went from trading at $0.25 to $5.54 in minutes . $Libra achieved a market capitalization of more than $4.5 billion. But in less than five hours, the figure evaporated . After reaching its maximum price, massive sales of almost $1.5 billion were recorded. Many virtual wallets made profits of more than $8 million .

At midnight, Javier Milei decided to delete his post and post a new message explaining what happened, but the news set off alarm bells in the crypto ecosystem. “This currency is a disaster. It has more than 80% of the tokens concentrated in five wallets,” warned one of the most used cryptocurrency applications in Argentina. Due to the issue, the president faces a series of complaints for alleged fraud, both nationally and internationally. The profit of the team behind $Libra amounts to around US$110 million .