Argentina Trains Prosecutors to Trace and Seize Crypto as LIBRA Probe Reshapes Enforcement

Argentina’s Public Prosecutor’s Office has trained a cohort of prosecutors, officials, and staff to trace, analyze, and seize virtual assets, a formal acknowledgment that cryptocurrency has become a routine fixture of criminal investigations in one of Latin America’s most crypto-active economies.

The Ministerio Público Fiscal, or MPF, held a specialized course titled Virtual Assets: Financial Analysis, Tracing, Detection and Seizure as part of its optional academic program, with sessions conducted remotely on August 19 and September 2. The training was restricted to employees, officials, and magistrates within the institution and focused on the technical knowledge required when digital assets become part of financial or criminal investigations.

Carmen Chena, a lawyer specializing in anti-money laundering controls, led the sessions. The program covered financial analysis of digital wallets, cryptocurrency tracing, asset recovery, and the legal procedures available when investigators seek to restrict or seize digital funds.

## What the course covered

The curriculum began with changes in asset recovery methods created by virtual assets before moving into financial and patrimonial analysis of digital wallets. Participants studied Argentina’s domestic legal framework alongside international rules governing virtual assets and examined the structure of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. The program covered different methods for imposing precautionary measures on digital funds and used practical cases to show how such procedures work during a live investigation.

For the MPF, the subject falls squarely within its institutional role. The agency promotes judicial action in defense of legality and the general interests of society, and one of its central responsibilities is directing public criminal investigations. Crypto tracing has already become part of several major Argentine cases, requiring investigators to follow transactions across wallets, blockchain networks, and exchanges.

## The LIBRA probe as a proving ground

The LIBRA investigation has given Argentine investigators an intensive education in exactly the kind of technical work the course now formalizes. In July, an Argentine judge ordered the identification of people behind 25 cryptocurrency wallets connected to the LIBRA investigation and ordered assets linked to those addresses frozen.

Investigators had reconstructed movements involving millions of dollars across several blockchain networks. A report from the Cybercrime Technical Department of the Argentine Federal Police found that four of eight wallets identified as belonging to the Libra Team had consolidated funds into a single address. Authorities later traced 498,539 USDT transferred through a cross-chain protocol to a wallet on the Tron network. The receiving address divided the funds into 17 transactions, and investigators identified transfers involving Binance, Bybit, OKX, and Bitfinex. The court sought know-your-customer records, IP addresses, transaction histories, and other information that could help identify the people behind the transactions.

The case stems from the February 2025 launch of LIBRA, a token promoted on social media by Argentine President Javier Milei. Its price climbed rapidly following Milei’s post before collapsing, triggering criminal and civil investigations into the people involved with the project. Phone records reviewed by prosecutors showed that Milei had seven calls with an entrepreneur connected to LIBRA around the time of his social media post, though investigators did not disclose what was discussed. Milei has denied wrongdoing and said his involvement was limited to sharing information about what he understood to be a private project supporting the Argentine economy.

Earlier coverage of the probe noted that investigators were examining roughly 8.2 million USD that had remained dormant before moving again in May through wallets placed under judicial scrutiny.

## A pattern of crypto seizures

Argentina’s justice system had already demonstrated its willingness to freeze digital assets before LIBRA dominated headlines. In December 2024, an Argentine court seized a USDT wallet containing approximately 3.5 million USD during an investigation into Rainbowex, an alleged trading Ponzi scheme. Authorities froze cryptocurrency wallets and bank accounts connected to the case, with technical support from Argentine crypto platform Lemon and blockchain forensic firms Chainalysis and Qlue. More than 15 raids were carried out across Argentina, at least four people were arrested, and authorities worked with Interpol to locate individuals from Malaysia suspected of creating and operating the platform. Rainbowex had offered investors daily returns of between 1 and 2 percent.

Courts have also handled disputes over stolen cryptocurrency directly. In 2022, a court ordered Binance to return Bitcoin to the victim of a theft, another example of judicial authorities engaging with digital assets held or transferred through crypto platforms.

## Why Argentina needs this now

The MPF’s training reflects the sheer scale of cryptocurrency adoption in the country. Stablecoins accounted for 94 percent of peso-denominated cryptocurrency trading volume in data published by a16z Crypto on August 30 using figures from Artemis. The analysis estimated that roughly one in five Argentines uses cryptocurrency, while downloads of the country’s 15 leading crypto applications increased 93 percent during 2024 compared with the previous year.

Crypto businesses have simultaneously been brought under a more defined compliance system. The National Securities Commission, known locally as the CNV, maintains the country’s Virtual Asset Service Provider registry, and companies admitted to the system must comply with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing requirements.

The institutionalization of crypto tracing inside the prosecutor’s office closes a capability gap that has been narrowing for years. Argentina is effectively building the state-level toolkit, wallet analysis, cross-chain tracing, exchange cooperation, seizure procedure, that private blockchain forensics firms have sold to wealthier jurisdictions. For a country where stablecoins dominate retail trading and high-profile cases keep landing on prosecutors’ desks, the training is less an upgrade than a necessity.