A federal prosecutors’ office that investigates corruption in government appealed the dismissal of the $LIBRA crypto case against President Milei and his sister Karina, saying the evidence shows signs of a fraudulent scheme.
The office is the Administrative Investigations Prosecutor’s Office, known as the PIA after its Spanish name, Procuraduría de Investigaciones Administrativas, and is headed by prosecutor Sergio Rodríguez. In a 16-page brief filed Thursday, it asked federal judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi to reopen the case and let the PIA take over the prosecution that prosecutor Eduardo Taiano dropped when he asked for the dismissals of all 11 suspects.
The PIA argues that the investigation is not finished. It lists steps left undone: a blockchain analysis dropped for lack of specialized software without trying alternatives, forensic examination of key phones, tracing of the funds, and recovery of communications. It also says clues were weighed one by one instead of together, and that technical hurdles and incomplete answers from abroad are reasons to dig deeper, not to close the case.
The brief says the case examines whether $LIBRA was created to deceive people into investing, using the President’s promotion as bait, and then to cash out the money raised. It says the case is still at the evidence-gathering stage, and that the evidence “would be showing signs of a fraudulent scheme.” It calls the doubt the ruling cast on a technical report from the prosecution’s own investigators “arbitrary statements more fitting for a television talk show than for the data in the case file.”
The PIA acted at the request of two organizations that have taken part in the case as friends of the court: the Center for Research and Prevention of Economic Crime and the Institute for Comparative Studies in Criminal and Social Sciences. Taiano gave the PIA no role in the year and a half he led the inquiry, although it had opened its own inquiry days after the token collapsed. La Nación reported that the groups also asked the chief prosecutor before the federal appeals court to seek the annulment of the dismissals, arguing that victims were not heard before the prosecutor asked for them.
The filing joins an appeal by investor Juan Patricio Marchetto filed Monday. Investors removed as private accusers are waiting for a higher criminal court to rule on their status.
The PIA’s request now goes to Judge Daniel Rafecas, who is covering Martínez de Giorgi’s court until November 9. Whether to admit the PIA and reopen the investigation is for the court to decide. If it refuses, the PIA’s alternative appeal lets the Federal Chamber, the appeals court for federal cases in Buenos Aires, review the closing.