A month on from ‘$LIBRA,’ Milei siblings at centre of judicial tug-of-war

President Javier Milei and his sister, Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei, will both be investigated alongside her brother Javier Milei in what is turning into a mega-case surrounding the ‘$LIBRA’ cryptocurrency scandal. But there is a jurisdictional tussle that is complicating the case.

Federal judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi has declared himself non-competent, turning over to his colleague María Romilda Servini de Cubría the denunciations of presumed fraud, influence-trafficking and violation of the Law of Public Ethics against the head of state.

After checking with Eduardo Taiano, the prosecutor working this year with Martínez de Giorgi’s courtroom, the magistrate understood that the denunciation against Karina Milei, lodged by the Coalición Civica deputies Mónica Frade and Maximiliano Ferraro, is connected to the case in the hands of Servini de Cubría – whose investigation is delegated to Taiano, but this time in his own prosecutor’s office.

Sources linked to the case pointed out that while the charges against Karina might be more robust than the ‘$LIBRA’ case as such, they tie in with various points mainly related to the cryptocurrency scandal and two figures already under investigation, Sergio Morales and Mauricio Novelli.

Martínez de Giorgi bore in mind that in the case where Taiano is investigating the President, Manuel Terrones Godoy, Morales, Novelli, Hayden Mark Davis and Julian Peh, witnesses have alleged that various meetings took place in which foreign businessmen “paid a sum of money to the President and/or his officials and/or entourage to make possible those meetings at the Hotel Libertador, where the [Argentina] Tech Forum [event] took place, the Casa Rosada and the Olivos presidential residence.”

For deputies Frade and Ferraro, Karina Milei was the person who allegedly collected kickbacks to facilitate meetings with President Milei, starting with trader Hayden Davis. They cite as proof private chat messages which were later published alleging as such (Davis denies the allegation).

“In her capacity as Presidential Chief-of-Staff,  reinforced by being his sister, Karina Milei managed the agenda of the President’s interviews,” stated the deputies in their denunciation.

They also pointed to statements by digital entrepreneur Diógenes Casares, who in an interview had spoken of a supposed request for bribes.

With the cryptocurrency scandal already over a month old and with the file placing the spotlight on Karina – commonly called ‘El Jefe’ (“the boss”) – as the intermediary between the President and the businessmen of the cryptocurrency world with presumed economic gain, two cases have already landed up in Servini de Cubría’s courtroom and passed over to Taiano, with the expectation of what might happen if they end up in Sandra Arroyo Salgado’s office in San Isidro.

The first case was lodged in the Criminal and Corporate Law courtroom, behind the Comodoro Py federal courthouse, by its ex-judge Guillermo Tiscornia. A few days after it was known that Servini de Cubría would be heading the main case, Tiscornia denounced the President for presumably committing the crime of “agiotaje” (“stock exchange fraud”) – a relatively new term contemplated in the Argentine Criminal Code to punish people who manipulate the prices of any asset for undue gain.

But current judge Marcelo Aguinsky denied the Criminal and Corporate Law courtroom’s jurisdiction, remitting the file to his colleague, Servini de Cubría. In that same ruling, the magistrate urged the Economy Ministry and the Central Bank “to establish channels of information accessible to the citizenry as to the risks associated with financial placements in non-traditional digital platforms.”

With firmness, Arroyo Salgado is defending her jurisdiction in another file linked to the President sustaining that the rise and fall of the $LIBRA arose from posts on the X (formerly Twitter) social network. 

President Milei denies he promoted the cryptocurrency, stating he only “transmitted” information about it. 

Beyond the ruling of Prosecutor Federico Iuspa – whose opinion was that the case should be heard in Comodoro Py – San Isidro magistrate Arroyo Salgado stood by her decision, rejecting a request to recuse herself. 

Time is running out for the prosecutor to appeal Arroyo Salgado’s decision, which otherwise stands.

There is a fierce tussle between both courtrooms to dispute the $LIBRA case. 

While Arroyo Salgado has proved that the crime originated within her territorial jurisdiction, Servini de Cubría has in her favour that the file in Taiano’s hands is more advanced, with evidence such as the raids on Morales and Novelli, the analysis of the confiscated mobile devices, the testimony of Guido Zatloukal, president of the Fundación Blockchain Argentina, one of the experts on cryptocurrency who spoke in Congress and an international legal warrant against Google.