- A document recovered from the phone of crypto lobbyist Mauricio Novelli outlines an alleged $5 million payment arrangement tied to Argentine President Javier Milei’s promotion of the Libra memecoin.
- The document—created days before Milei’s post about the token—details staged payments based on public endorsements of LIBRA and entering an advisory deal with Hayden Davis.
- Argentinian investigators also uncovered call records that suggest coordinated communication and attempts to cover up Milei’s involvement among key figures around the time of the launch.
Files uncovered by forensic computing experts within Argentina’s Public Prosecutor’s Office appear to have revealed a $5 million payment agreement between Hayden Davis and Argentine President Javier Milei to promote the $LIBRA crypto project.
A report published March 14 by Argentine news outlet El Destape said federal investigators had uncovered a file, created days before the pump-and-dump fiasco, that refers to an agreement “discussed with H” to provide:
- US$1.5 million in liquid tokens or cash as an advance.
- US$1.5 million in liquid tokens or cash once Milei tweets that Hayden Davis/Kelsier Ventures was his advisor.
- US$2 million in tokens or cash after a contract was signed in-person with Milei for “blockchain/AI consulting for the Argentine government”.
The high-profile $LIBRA rug-pull caused a national scandal in Argentina and resulted in calls for Milei’s impeachment. A criminal investigation was launched into the scam, which is being led by Argentine federal prosecutor Eduardo Taiano.
The incriminating document was allegedly found on devices seized from crypto lobbyist Mauricio Novelli, through expert analysis by Argentina’s Directorate of Technological Support for Criminal Investigations (DATIP).
It contradicts Milei’s claim that he’d posted about $LIBRA with no knowledge of the details of the project and had simply shared it in support of a “private enterprise with which I obviously have no connection whatsoever.”
Related: Argentine Report Alleges President Milei Enabled $LIBRA Crypto Scandal
Frantic Calls Point to Scandal Containment
Call and message logs were also detected on Novelli’s devices, which indicate he played a key role in facilitating communications between $LIBRA’s promoters and Milei before and during the token’s spectacular collapse.
The DATIP report indicates Novelli was likely in the US with Hayden Davis at the time, and exchanged multiple calls with President Milei and his sister Karina Milei in the minutes before and after Milei first tweeted about the $LIBRA coin on February 14, 2025.
Within hours of the President’s post on X, $LIBRA had soared to a market value of US$4.5 billion (AU$6.4 billion) — but crashed soon after when wallets linked to project insiders sold off over US$100 million (AU$142 million) worth of tokens.
Related: ‘Bitcoin Mayor’ Eric Adams Draws Crypto Backlash After NYC Token Liquidity Shock
The uncovered records show that, as the drama unfolded, Novelli had multiple exchanges with contacts including Julián Law Firm, Julian Peh from KIP Protocol, and political consultant Santiago Caputo.
El Destape reporters posit: “Everything indicates that some kind of maneuver to contain the scandal was being orchestrated during this back-and-forth.”
Lending weight to that claim, the call logs show that 11 minutes following an exchange between Peh and Novelli, Kip Protocol issued a statement calling Libra a success and stating, “We want to clarify that President Milei was not and is not involved in any way in the development of the project, which is entirely private.”
Peh told The New York Times last year that Novelli had provided him with the exact text to use. Milei issued a statement in the wake of $LIBRA’s collapse, calling the token a KIP Protocol project that was pitched to him by Julian Peh, and that Peh had introduced him to Hayden Davis — claims Peh denies.
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