After two failed moves to close the $LIBRA case In Argentina, a third attempt began to take shape in recent weeks. The lawyer Fernando Burlando probed whether it is possible comprehensive damage repair to the affected investors and close the criminal case without convictionsas reconstructed THE NATION based on the testimonies of five official and private sources. But his plan collided with two obstacles: for Hayden Davis there was no fraud and the president Javier Milei and his sister Karina They should be exonerated sooner.
Burlando toured the federal courts of Comodoro Py and probed circuits of power in search of compensation for the victims and to close without convictions the criminal investigation that has Javier and Karina Milei, Davis, as defendants. Mauricio Novelli and Manuel Terrones Godoyamong others, although the management encountered a refusal. The federal prosecutor in charge of the investigation, Eduardo Taianorefused to receive it when the lawyer showed up at his office.
Burlando’s attempt in Comodoro Py occurred while the federal judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi He was on leave. In the back room of the courtroom, the lawyer attempted a “scoutingThat is, first testing the parties to then reach the accused with the support that the rest had already said yes.
Taiano’s refusal to receive him thwarted that strategy, however, before it was completed. “We went to consult the prosecutor and he didn’t even attend to us,” Burlando admitted to his relatives, according to what he reconstructed. THE NATION. In the hallways, the lawyer calls Taiano “the anti-victim prosecutor” for his reluctance to listen to those affected by the collapse of $LIBRA, which in February 2025 caused losses to investors of more than US$250 million.
The legal figure that Burlando explores is the extinction of the criminal action for comprehensive reparation of the damage, provided for in the Penal Code. But this path collides with a limitation that official sources repeatedly highlighted when asked by THE NATION: As long as there are public officials charged in the case, the Penal Code does not allow this exit.
The limitation imposed by the legislation is also a condition that the current Vice Minister of Justice, Santiago Violatraced those who approached him last year during a similar attempt. He informed them as an unavoidable condition for success that the complaints must remove Javier and Karina Milei from the caseas revealed THE NATION last November.
Added to these first obstacles is another one of representation: the criminal file being processed in Argentina includes at least two groups of investors and Burlando’s sponsorship is not undisputed among them: “At some point they had removed it, I don’t know if they put it back,” admitted an official source familiar with the marches and countermarches.
For Burlando, on the contrary, the accused show a “myopia” that is difficult to understand because, beyond the corruption plot, the file is primarily of a patrimonial nature. “There is corruption in the $LIBRA case, but first the fraud and property damage appear“, he told the victims. “For me, the accused do not understand the seriousness of the issue, because otherwise they would have already gone out to fix it,” he let them know.
On the defense side, on the contrary, Davis’s position is blunt. Their lawyers reaffirm that it will be difficult to prove the configuration of a fraud and that, therefore, the American businessman would not have to compensate the investors. Without that will, the formula for comprehensive repair lacks real motor. “Not even the private parties were interested. Hayden Davis could come, Novelli could come to say ‘well, let’s fix this’. Calmly. Nothing from them so far,” Burlando acknowledged.
Third attempt
This third attempt adds to a sequence of failed movements that THE NATION revealed during the last few months. The first was carried out by Davis’s defense, which in June 2025 explored the possibility of deposit nearly US$100 million in a judicial account in Argentina to extinguish the criminal action against him.
The second attempt began to take shape, meanwhile, when the lawyers Nicolás Oszust and Agustín Romboláwho represent more than thirty investors with losses exceeding US$4.5 million, held a civil mediation hearing with lawyers from Novelli, Terrones Godoy and the former CNV advisor Sergio Moraleswhich was also truncated. In this context, a collaborator of Burlando also acted, who sounded out Davis’s criminal lawyer in Buenos Aires, Mark Saltwithout result.
The common denominator of the three attempts is the problem of “fronting“In other words, that no one wants to formally assume reparation before investors and Justice, or stand up for the money to be distributed. One possibility that circulated in the conversations was that a crypto market platform would assume that role, but the proposal generated resistance due to its legal and reputational risks.
Burlando acknowledged having held conversations with victims about the possibility of finding a solution because, in his view, time is against the Government. “If I were a government operator, I would go out to fix it immediately”he stated. And he left a warning with a specific date on the horizon: “If they lose the 2027 elections because of this issue, they will all go to prison”.
