New Revelations Reignite Crypto Scandal Involving Argentina’s President...

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New Revelations Reignite Crypto Scandal Involving Argentina’s President Milei

Court documents raise questions about the Argentine president’s statements that he had no connection to the launch of the $Libra cryptocurrency.

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President Javier Milei of Argentina in Buenos Aires in 2024.

Credit...

Magali Druscovich for The New York Times

By

Daniel Politi

and

Emma Bubola

Reporting from Buenos Aires

April 6, 2026,

10:17 a.m. ET

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President Javier Milei of Argentina

promoted a cryptocurrency

last year that quickly skyrocketed in value then cratered just as fast, costing investors millions of dollars and setting off a scandal and an investigation.

Mr. Milei said he was simply highlighting a private venture and had no connection to the digital coin called $Libra.

New evidence is now raising questions about his assertion.

Phone logs from a federal investigation by Argentine prosecutors into the coin’s collapse show seven phone calls between Mr. Milei and one of the entrepreneurs behind the cryptocurrency on the night in 2025 when Mr. Milei posted about $Libra on X.

The contents of the calls, which took place before and after Mr. Milei’s post, are not known.

But the phone logs — which were obtained by The New York Times and first reported by a local cable news channel, C5N — suggest a greater degree of communication between Mr. Milei and the entrepreneurs who launched the token than what the president has publicly acknowledged. Newly uncovered messages also suggest Mr. Milei received regular payments from one of the entrepreneurs while he was a congressman.

Mr. Milei has not publicly commented on the call logs and other documents, and he did not respond to a request for comment.

He

is named as a person of interest

in the federal prosecutor’s ongoing investigation into the digital coin, according to court documents reviewed by The Times, but has not been formally charged with any crime.

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