“Today the new trader 2025 career began and we celebrated it in the best way: Curry vs LeBron, crazy! Clearly NW is team curry 😎,” says the post published on February 7, 2025 on Instagram by the N&W Professional Traders academy, by lobbyist Mauricio Novelli. In the image they appear Agustín Laje, director of the Faro FoundationNovelli and his partner Jeremías Walsh in the stadium Crypto.com Los Angeles Arena, United States, during an NBA game between the Los Angeles Lakers, where LeBron James plays, with the Golden State Warriors, led by Stephen Curry.
One week later, on February 14, 2025, President Javier Milei recommended the “$LIBRA” cryptocurrency through Xwhose value plummeted hours later, generating million-dollar losses for more than 40,000 investors, according to estimates cited in the case. A computer expertise carried out by the Public Prosecutor’s Office revealed that Milei and Novelli recorded at least 5 telephone communications in the minutes prior to the launch of the crypto.
The link between Novelli and Laje goes back – according to social media posts reviewed by Checked-, at least, as of May 2020, when who would later become president of the Faro Foundation promoted the N&W Professional Traders courses, by Novelli and Walsh.
Both Milei and Laje They continued to appear as teachers on the website until the closing of this note. of the company. With La Libertad Avanza in the Government, Laje created the Faro Foundation, which spent billions of pesos on network advertising in 2025 and 2026 but does not present balance sheets that account for the origin of its income.
Checked He consulted Agustín Laje about his relationship with Novelli by email, by phone and on Instagram but so far he has not received a response.
Laje published dozens of posts and live broadcasts on Instagram promoting Novelli’s agency
“My friends at NW Professional Traders,” Laje says in the videos. For at least 4 years, between 2020 and 2023, Agustín Laje consistently promoted NW Professional Traders products and courses on his networks, and received payments for them on at least 2 occasions, as he was able to verify. Checked based on information contained in Novelli’s phone that was examined by Justice in the $LIBRA case.
In that period, the political scientist close to Milei published more than 30 videos and participated in at least 3 live broadcasts with Novelli, whom he presented as “a friend” and “a specialist.”
The campaign was especially intense in 2021, with 11 videos distributed throughout the year, and continued in 2022 with another 9 videos, plus live broadcasts. In some of those first contents, Laje mentioned Milei while promoting the course.
Among the file documents reviewed by Checked receipts and invoices which record transfers in the name of Agustín Laje in March and May 2024 for promotional content for the company. In March a transfer appears for 2,500 USDT for “one reel and two stories”. In May there is another for 2,500 USDT for an Instagram live. In total, the documents contain at least 5,000 USDT (US$5,000).
Checked He consulted Laje about the amount of money received by N&W Professional Traders for the publication of the videos, but did not receive a response.
There are also public references to previous payments. According to a note from La Nación“on July 27, 2023, ‘Ara’ (Novelli’s secretary) made a clean cut of the ‘next payments’ that the ‘NW’ firm had to face. The first on the list? Milei, with $200,000, the same sum as Laje. That is, between US$364 at the ‘blue’ exchange rate then in force or US$756 at the official exchange rate.” This medium did not independently access this document.
Laje and Milei promoted the “Vulcano Game” token, pointed out as a precursor to the $LIBRA case
According to indicated La NaciónNovelli promoted the “@Vulcano_Game” project at the end of 2021, a NFT game (tokens non-fungible) modality play to earn associated with the VULC crypto. Milei posted on February 18, 2022 – when he was already a national deputy – that he found the project “very interesting” and that it showed “a sustainable economic diagram over time, unlike the vast majority.”
By then, Laje had already promoted it: in December 2021 and January 2022. Checked He asked him if he had received crypto transfers or money for these videos, but received no response.
He token collapsed shortly after. The Congressional Investigative Commission on the $LIBRA case mentioned this case -along with CoinX- as a background of what the report defined as a “modus operandi” and a pattern of behavior in which the same names are repeated: Milei, Novelli and Terrones Godoy. This characterization corresponds to the legislative report and does not imply, by itself, a judicial determination of responsibility.
In October 2024, programmer Maximiliano Firtman He published a historical graph on his X account of Vulcano token (VULC) prices on CoinMarketCap. The curve shows that after a brief initial spike, which Laje and Milei were promoting in late 2021 and early 2022, the price plummeted and never recovered.
At the closing of this note, in the same page could be seen that he token had a market capitalization of $0, and that its 3,400 holders they have in their power tokens that are worthless and that no one buys.
Comments from 2022 can still be seen in response to Vulcano’s posts in X in which users They point out that they have lost money with the project and describe it as a “scam”. Checked It confirmed the existence of these comments, but did not individually verify each case or the identity of those who published them.
“Here we listen to (Manuel) Terrones Godoy, partner of Novelli in $POUNDpromoting the ‘Vulcano’ project saying that Milei is behind the project and supports it. Vulcano was a Novelli project that resulted in fraud and it was one of the things that I communicated to the Government when they called me,” explained Firtman. in a tweet. This material was cited as background in the public debate about the case.
And he added: “This video was deleted from Terrones Godoy’s channel ‘kmanus88’ as soon as the scandal broke $POUND and then recovered by the youtuber @Maveriktraderwho had been following crypto scams and collecting information as soon as they were published.”
Villarruel links Laje with the shitcoins
The person who also linked Laje to cryptocurrencies was Vice President Victoria Villarruel.
Laje has 2 photos on his Instagram hugging Villarruel: one in October 2023 and another in November of the same year. “Great patriots, great friends. Thank you for such dedication,” says the last post.
But today their relationship broke down. This is how Laje explained it in a interview what they did to her in February 2026 in Laca Stream: “I have known Villarruel since 2006/2007. At that time, we were very strong fighting the seventies. Victoria Villarruel was very complicated, because she wanted to monopolize that cause. I had many clashes. When the Milei-Villarruel formula was consolidated we had a meeting and we said: tabula rasa.”
Laje added: “I was not surprised that in the end she ended up betraying this project, because I knew her a long time ago and she was always extremely complicated to work with as a team.”
And he pointed out: “I have known what her political ideas are for 10 years, and now what? Is she going to disguise herself as Unicef? She has joined the game of Kirchnerism.”
The vice president responded with a tweet in a post where that part of the interview was published, referring to cryptocurrencies: “I don’t know, I don’t know anyone at Unicef but he does know well those who were in the issue of the shitcoins”.
See the first note about this research series from the Faro Foundation.
