One million dollars was transferred through four distinct transactions that were executed in just 13 minutes. Investigators believe these accounts may have functioned as a platform to launder money and convert digital funds into cash. A retiree has become involved in the investigations of the 'Criptogate $Libra' case, after it was confirmed that just days before the cryptocurrency's launch, he received one million dollars from an account belonging to Hayden Davis, the Texan promoter of the operation. The retiree is from the municipality of Tigre, in Greater Buenos Aires, and reportedly received one million dollars from Davis in USDT, a dollar-pegged cryptocurrency, on January 30, 2025, the same day the American operator met with President Javier Milei and posted a photo with the leader on social networks. According to information obtained by the Argentine News Agency, the investigation has identified the retiree as 75-year-old Orlando Rodolfo Mellino, and his alleged involvement in the scheme emerged from data provided from abroad by the virtual platform Bitget, confirming that one of the accounts sought by the justice system belonged to him. When the price of $LIBRA crashed and caused a legion of victims in different countries, Davis compensated American businessman Dave Portnoy, who had invested 5 million dollars in the project and lost it to the crypto scam. Because Portnoy maintains his public virtual wallets, investigators were able to identify, from the exact amount of the refund, the wallet from which Davis paid him. According to local investigators, 'minutes before' Davis posted a photo with President Milei on his X profile, two addresses belonging to the Texan businessman each sent 507,500 USDC to the address referenced as CPS9, hosted on Bitget. 'This information allowed us to determine that the owner of CPS9 is Orlando Mellino,' states one of the reports by prosecutor Eduardo Taiano. A few hours later, Mellino or whoever operated his account sent that one million digital dollars to another account, whose owner is still unknown.
