Argentina Ordered 25 $LIBRA Wallets Frozen. Six Exchanges Hold the Next Clue

An Argentine federal judge has ordered 25 crypto accounts frozen in the investigation surrounding the $LIBRA token.

The blockchain addresses are only half of the evidence.

Judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi also directed six exchanges to identify the people behind those accounts and deliver records that can connect public wallet activity to names, bank accounts, devices and internet addresses.

That is where the case changes from tracing tokens to identifying people.

The order reaches accounts at Binance, Bybit, OKX, CoinEx, FixedFloat and Bitfinex. It demands far more than a balance freeze.

Argentina’s $LIBRA investigation is heating up. A federal judge has reportedly frozen 25 crypto accounts and ordered Binance, Bybit, OKX, CoinEx…

— BeInCrypto (@beincrypto) July 17, 2026

Infobae reports that Martínez de Giorgi acted at the request of prosecutor Eduardo Taiano after receiving a technical report from the Argentine Federal Police’s cybercrime department.

The order covers ten accounts at Binance, eight at Bybit, two at OKX, two at CoinEx, one at FixedFloat and two at Bitfinex. Each platform was told to provide its complete customer file for the named accounts.

That includes opening documents, internal compliance memoranda, IP connection logs, platform interactions, linked bank-account data and full transaction histories.

The judge said the measure was necessary to prevent transfers that could make recovery impossible while the criminal inquiry continues. The order is also designed to preserve assets that prosecutors may later argue represent proceeds of an offense.

It does not establish that every person behind the accounts committed a crime. Nor does the issuance of an order prove that each exchange has already frozen every asset named in it.

That execution gap matters.

A public blockchain lets investigators follow funds between addresses, but an Argentine court cannot rewrite a Solana or Tron ledger. The practical freeze depends on whether an exchange controls the relevant account and complies with the legal request.

An Argentine judge ordered 25 crypto wallets frozen across Binance, Bybit, OKX and 3 more exchanges in the LIBRA probe. The catch…

— CryptoPulse.media (@cryptopuls_news) July 17, 2026

The police report shows why investigators want the exchanges’ internal records.

According to Infobae, analysts used backward tracing and open-source intelligence to reconstruct a path beginning with addresses described as “Team Libra Wallets.” Millions of tokens moved from those wallets into the Meteora liquidity protocol on February 14 and 15, 2025.

The balances later converged in a common intermediary address. In November 2025, funds moved from that address to another wallet that Arkham labeled “Solana First Funder: Libra – Squads Vault – Milei CATA.”

Then came a faster cross-chain move.

On May 10, 2026, the report says the equivalent of 498,539.85 USDT traveled from Solana to a Tron wallet in 16 seconds. Automated solvers supplied liquidity on both networks, allowing the value to cross chains without passing through a traditional centralized exchange at that moment.

Once on Tron, the funds allegedly entered a concentration account and were split into smaller daily transfers. Argentine investigators described the pattern as digital smurfing, a technique intended to make the trail harder to follow.

They also identified 17 bridges of USDC or USDT from Solana to Tron that ultimately deposited into one wallet.

La Nacion separately reported that the court is seeking the ultimate beneficiaries behind the accounts. That phrase is important: the visible address that receives a transfer may be an intermediary, an exchange deposit address or a service wallet rather than the person who controlled the broader operation.

The court is therefore asking each platform to look through the account structure, identify the customer who passed its verification process and preserve the records behind that relationship. The inquiry is focused on control and economic benefit rather than the address visible at the final hop.

The KYC demand gives investigators a chance to map deposits and withdrawals onto verified customer records. IP logs can show where an account was accessed.

Linked bank details can reveal fiat entry and exit points. Internal compliance notes may show whether an exchange had already flagged unusual behavior.

None of those records is public on the blockchain.

El Cronista emphasizes the reach across six international platforms. That creates six separate compliance processes, different corporate jurisdictions and the possibility that some accounts have already been emptied.

The exchanges were ordered to disclose the identities of the account holders while freezing funds connected to the specified addresses. The request also reaches the complete movement history, giving investigators a way to compare exchange records with the police team’s onchain reconstruction.

A freeze at a custodial platform can stop a customer from withdrawing assets that remain under the exchange’s control. It cannot claw back tokens that left the platform before the order arrived, which makes the timing of each account’s activity central to any recovery effort.

The $LIBRA investigation began after Argentine President Javier Milei promoted the token in an X post on February 14, 2025, then deleted the message after its price collapsed.

The token reportedly climbed from roughly one cent to nearly $5 before plunging. A complaint cited by Infobae alleges that more than 40,000 people suffered losses and that approximately $100 million was withdrawn.

Those figures remain allegations inside an active case.

The investigation has named lobbyist Mauricio Novelli, his business partner Manuel Terrones Godoy and Kelsier Ventures chief Hayden Davis as defendants. Kip Network and Kelsier Ventures have also been identified in reporting about the token’s creation and launch.

The new order does not resolve who designed the trading structure, who controlled every wallet or whether the conduct meets the elements of fraud or money laundering under Argentine law.

It does move the case beyond screenshots and political arguments.

Investigators have a transaction map, a list of custodial platforms and a demand for the private records sitting behind public addresses.

The blockchain preserved the trail. The exchanges may determine whose names appear at the end of it.

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