Argentina’s Federal Judge Marcelo Martínez De Giorgi has frozen dozens of crypto wallets tied to the LIBRA investigation and ordered six international exchanges to hand over complete client files, including KYC records, IP logs, and linked bank accounts.

Prosecutor Eduardo Taiano requested the measure on July 14, nearly 1.5 years after the token’s collapse. He relied on a Federal Police cybercrime report tracing funds from the so-called Team Libra wallets to major trading platforms.

Exchanges Must Hand Over KYC Data in the LIBRA Investigation

The freeze covers accounts at Binance, Bybit, OKX, CoinEx, FixedFloat, and Bitfinex. Each platform must deliver account opening files, IP connection logs, transaction histories, linked bank accounts, and internal memos.

Based on reports, at least 25 accounts have been frozen, though the ruling itself refers to dozens of wallets.

The judge held that both the plausibility of the claim and the danger of delay were established. Therefore, the accounts will stay frozen to preserve assets for a potential confiscation before any proceeds can be cashed out.

Argentina’s Federal Police cybercrime unit will process the requests, with Interpol stepping in when needed. Its report reconstructed an unbroken chain of on-chain transactions from Team Libra wallets through Jup.ag, FixedFloat, and deBridge Finance.

The findings build on fresh LIBRA case evidence gathered earlier from seized phones. The resolution, as translated, describes a deliberate laundering pattern.

“A digital smurfing or structuring strategy was deployed, consisting of the daily distribution of fragmented amounts to multiple wallets linked to centralized exchange houses… with the purpose of liquidating the assets in fiat currency or making it difficult to trace them.”

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Smurfing Trail Meets Political Friction

On February 14, 2025, President Javier Milei promoted the Solana-based LIBRA token on his X(Twitter) account.

According to the complaint, the price climbed from $0.01 to nearly $5, a roughly 500-fold move, before collapsing within hours.

A small cluster of wallets allegedly withdrew around $100 million in that window. Meanwhile, more than 40,000 buyers who entered after the presidential post saw their holdings collapse, with many suffering steep retail trader losses.

Prosecutors believe traders Mauricio Novelli and Manuel Terrones Godoy orchestrated the scheme alongside US businessman Hayden Davis, who created the token.

Earlier leaked files pointed to an alleged $5 million contract for the presidential promotion, a claim Milei denies.

However, the tracing push arrives as the case’s victim-driven side collapses. In early July, the same judge removed all five investor plaintiffs at Novelli’s defense request, leaving Taiano alone to advance the file.

Opposition lawmakers also linked the ruling to the Senate’s approval of the judge’s wife’s nomination to the federal bench, a nomination Milei submitted.

“With prosecutor Taiano stalling the investigation, if there are no victims to push it forward, the case will be abandoned,” Peronist Deputy Selva Almada wrote.

The exchange responses may now decide whether investigators can attach names to the frozen wallets.

LIBRA’s arc mirrors the TRUMP token, where meme coin retail losses reached $3.81 billion across nearly 1 million wallets. Whether Argentina can recover its $100 million is the question the KYC files may finally answer.

Source: BeInCrypto