Court in Argentina Freezes Funds Tied to LIBRA Token Scandal, Hayden Davis

The move, to preserve potentially illicit funds while the criminal inquiry advances, marks a new chapter in what is fast becoming one of the most politically charged crypto matters across the Latin American continent.

According to a report by local media La Nacion, judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi ordered a measure of “prohibición de innovar” (prohibition to dispose or transfer assets) on real and financial assets of Davis along with two suspects: Colombian national Favio Camilo Rodríguez Blanco and Argentine citizen Orlando Rodolfo Mellino. This occurred on the request by federal prosecutor Eduardo Taiano, based on a technical report of the Secretariat for the Investigation of Financial Crimes and the Directorate General for Asset Recovery and Forfeiture of the Argentine Public Prosecutor’s Office. The report estimated that investor losses related to the LIBRA affair reached between $100 million and $120 million.

According to the ruling, the freeze aims to prevent the risk that the accused could dispose of or hide assets before the investigative process concludes, a determination rooted in the dual legal principles of verisimilitude of right (prima facie elements of wrongdoing) and urgency due to potential asset dissipation. The judge further ordered the country’s securities regulator, Comisión Nacional de Valores (CNV), to inform virtual asset service providers operating in Argentina so they extend the blocking measure to any platforms hosting wallets of affected owners.

The Argentine media reported that the two intermediaries were conversion operators of the virtual assets to fiat currency or instruments that obscure the money trail. Rodriguez Blanco reportedly operated together with Argentine lobbyists Mauricio Novelli and Manuel Terrones Godoy in a pattern of transactions and cash withdrawals according to movements in LIBRA wallets. Similarly, Mellino is cited moving funds directly from Davis to the Argentine side, in one instance just 42 minutes after a selfie featuring Argentine President Javier Milei and Davis. The investigation interprets this as possibly constituting "indirect payments to public officials."

The LIBRA affair has already caused considerable political turbulence in Argentina. Opposition lawmakers called for parliamentary investigations into President Milei's involvement after he tweeted his support of the token, which then sharply collapsed, causing widespread losses. In his defense, Milei said he merely "diffused" and did not directly promote the project, adding he had no role in the development or structuring of it.

The Argentine Anti-Corruption Office (OA) concluded in June 2025 that President Javier Milei did not breach public-ethics laws when he mentioned the LIBRA token, determining that the post was made in a personal capacity without government resources or institutional endorsement.

The asset freeze ordered by Martínez de Giorgi signals that the judicial branch considers the case beyond mere investor complaints, potentially linked to financial crime and asset-recovery questions. The link between high-value crypto flows, lobbying intermediaries, and the presidential image have raised the stakes well beyond a typical consumer-loss case.

Depending on the fact-finding to come, Davis, Rodríguez Blanco, and Mellino may thus face criminal charges under either Argentine federal statute on fraud or illicit associations, though no formal indictment has yet been publicly confirmed. Meanwhile, U.S. courts continue to process civil liability claims that may expand into the regulatory or criminal realm.

The asset freeze brings a glimmer of hope for asset recovery, though such processes are notoriously slow and cumbersome, especially given cross-border crypto flows and involvement with unregistered platforms. Cooperation from the Argentine court to the CNV may help trace domestic exposure through local service providers.

This episode shows, from a policy perspective, how memecoins and token launches can sometimes cross with high-level politics and cross-jurisdictional legal regimes, either deliberately or otherwise.

As regulators worldwide start paying closer attention to crypto-asset promotions and celebrity endorsements, the LIBRA affair might serve as a touchstone for enforcement action against politically linked token launches.

The readiness of the Argentine judiciary to freeze assets before the final verdict suggests that the regulators are treating the meme-coin casualties as not just some retail investor losses, but as events of potentially organized financial crimes.