The judicial investigation into Mauricio Novelli and the financial Pound took an institutional turn after the examination of his cell phone. The messages recovered by Justice show that the trader not only attracted investments in cryptocurrencies, but also presented himself to potential clients as an influencer with direct access to the Casa Rosada. According to the evidence, Novelli offered meetings and “exclusivity” with Javier Milei in exchange for payments that reached $300,000.
This new chapter deepens the shadow over the businessman, whose financial plot and political ties had already been alerted by this medium in previous editions. While those affected by the fall of their platform claim missing funds, the chats under judicial analysis suggest a lobbying scheme where access to the president was offered as another asset in his business portfolio, exposing the permeability of the filters in the official inner circle.
Below is the cover note for NEWS written by journalist Juan Luis González:
Mauricio Novelli’s name ceased to be known only in business and technology circles when he appeared linked to the $Libra cryptocurrency scandal last February. Documents delivered by the Binance firm to Congress indicated him as the holder of a key virtual wallet in the launch of the crypto asset, with million-dollar movements that coincided with political meetings and the organization of forums where he approached power. The sudden closure of that account, just weeks after the controversy broke out, further fueled suspicions. Discreet in public, with ties that reached the Casa Rosada and Javier Milei himself, Novelli has since been at the center of a plot where politics, finance and the crypto universe are mixed in the same story. Due to the fraudulent operation, the President and his sister Karina continue to be investigated in local and United States Justice.
Vitálik Buterín is a Russian programmer, although he is best known for being one of the founders of Ethereum, the second most important cryptocurrency in the world. For the crypto world Buterín is the equivalent of what Lionel Messi is in football: an international celebrity. That is why what happened in December of last year now takes on another dimension, after the $Libra scandal.
Buterín requested an audience with Javier Milei, taking advantage of a trip he had planned to the country. The first thing he found was the same response that any person who seeks to speak with the President receives, be it someone who wants to be a candidate for councilor in a town in Buenos Aires or a billionaire who thinks about investing in the country: he had to convince, first, Karina Milei.
However, there he got the first surprise: the Secretary General sent him to speak with Mauricio Novelli, a young 29-year-old trader with a rather dubious reputation. Returning to the field of football, it was as if Messi requested a meeting with the President and instead they sent him to manage that meeting with the substitute of a promotion team. Either way, Buterín, probably through some local intermediary, did it. And there came the big news. Novelli refused him the rally. The promotion player who said no to global celebrity.
With Monday’s newspaper, the scene takes on another meaning. $Libra was, in those last days of 2024, about to see the light. As Novelli’s fluid meetings with Karina Milei at the Casa Rosada suggest – which even extend to January 30, 14 days before the libertarian promoted the crypto currency on his networks – the relationship between the Secretary General and her dolphin was more than fluid.
Could they have feared that $Libra would appear in the conversation and that Buterín would try to convince Milei to back down? Were they afraid that the Russian would cry foul and come out to publicly denounce the move? They are questions without answers. What this story proves is that Novelli was Karina’s man in this universe. And this world of cryptobros and virtual currencies is the same one that ended with an international scandal with thousands of people scammed and the libertarian in the middle, and that also put the spotlight on the dark relationship that unites Novelli with the Milei.
“You have to know Mauricio. He’s a sweetheart.” The speaker is Karina Milei, in a phrase that could be from any time in recent years. He was referring to Novelli, who had earned his trust by playing his most sensitive organ: putting money directly into his pockets every month. Karina was so delighted with this young businessman that she tried to convince several members of La Libertad Avanza, who orbited around the world of cryptocurrencies or finance, so that, like her brother, they would join in teaching classes at N&W Traders, the school that Novelli has with his partner Jeremías Walsh.
The business was simple. Milei promoted the place on his networks and went from time to time to give talks to the students who paid the fee to train as traders. The libertarian said in the publications that he was going to give “Bitcoin classes” there, which contrasts greatly with what he says now, after the $Libra scandal. “I don’t understand anything about Bitcoin,” he told Jonatan Viale in his failed interview. How can someone teach a topic if they don’t “understand anything”?
In any case, the thing worked, to the point that Milei approached N&W Traders to the writer Agustín Laje and the influencer Emmanuel Dannan. Novelli gave money directly to Karina every month, the one who always managed the accounts between the brothers. According to two sources in the space, it was between two thousand and three thousand dollars per month, in a relationship that began at the end of 2020. That relationship was going so well that it even survived some complex bumps, such as when Novelli convinced Milei to promote a project of his “Vulcano Game”, a cryptocurrency that the economist sold on his networks as “an economic diagram sustainable over time.” However, it was not sustainable at all. Like $Libra, that project quickly foundered and left many victims who, trusting the libertarian’s word, had put in money. Milei assured in several interviews that he “charges” for his recommendations, so there is no reason to think that he spread Vulcano without first passing the cap.
When the commercial link between Milei and Novelli ended, at least the formal one – if this income from advertising can be called that, since as it appears in the sworn statements of the then libertarian, his only official income was his salary in Congress, which he also donated – is very doubtful. Milei continued to highlight on his Instagram profile that he was a professor at N&W Traders even after he became President. Will Novelli have continued paying the libertarian even after arriving at the Casa Rosada? If so, that would be a crime.
However, he might not be the only one. An investigation by the prestigious The New York Times – which even made its cover – revealed four cases in which Novelli would have asked for a million-dollar sum to access a meeting with the President. Or rather, he would have asked for an additional sum. The thing is that these reported episodes would have occurred during the “Tech Forum”, an event in October in which Milei gave a speech and which is central to this story.
That forum was organized by Novelli and his partner Manuel Terrones Godoy, who at that time had such a low reputation in the crypto world that several on the networks, as soon as it was known, had nicknamed it “Ponzipalooza” – among them the influencer Javier Smaldone, one of those who discovered Leonardo Cositorto’s scam. At that event, as recorded in the visitor log, Novelli met with Milei, spokesperson Manuel Adorni and Singaporean Julian Peh. Este, one of the creators of $Libra, met the libertarian that day.
Novelli and Terrones Godoy raised thousands of dollars at the “Techforum”. They made that money by selling “sponsorships” to brands or entrepreneurs, in payments that ranged from five thousand to fifty thousand dollars, a rate that can be seen in an image that accompanies this note.
One of those who put money in and who, he says, was therefore promised a meeting with the President was Charles Hoskinson, a cryptocurrency mega-entrepreneur who created one of the largest platforms in the sector, Cardano, and who also publicly declared that he was a great admirer of Milei. But, Hoskinson said, that promised – and paid for – meeting turned into a brief group photo, an image that illustrates this note. For a one-on-one with the libertarian, he assured, they asked him for even more money. “They told us, ‘Hey, you know, give us a little something and we can get you a meeting,’” the businessman said. “Another aide said Novelli offered a meeting with the President if the person signed a $500,000 contract for vague “consulting services,” reports The New York Times, which claims to have seen a copy of that document.
If this is true, enable several questions. One is how much money they will have requested for a meeting. However, there is another more important one: should we think that it was all a ruse by the young trader that the Milei knew nothing about? There are several elements to consider that do not.
The first is the saga of meetings between the Milei and Novelli. Taking into account that there were meetings prior to the event – in June, July, August and September, at the Casa Rosada with Karina – and that the formal TechForum society was created only a month before the event – whose only relevant figure was the President – I would have to assume that at least the Secretary General was aware of what was going to happen there.”
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