Two men behind cryptocurrency promoted by Argentine President Javier Milei and First Lady Melania Trump have been accused of engaging in fraud and exploiting “celebrity association and ‘borrowed fame’ to sell legitimacy to unsuspecting investors,” according to a new legal filing reported byThe Independent.
According to Wired, a federal class action lawsuit was first brought in April against Benjamin Chow and Hayden Davis, co-founders of the crypto exchange Meteora and the venture capital firm Kelsier Labs. The duo were accused of a multimillion-dollar scam involving a single memecoin and eventually racketeering.
A new version of the complaint, submitted to court on Tuesday, "drags in the first lady, accusing Chow and Davis of pumping and dumping at least 15 crypto coins, one of which was $MELANIA," The Independent reports.
Trump willingly promoted the coin, posting a promotion for it on her official X account on January 19, the day before her husband Donald Trump’s second inauguration, in which she directed her followers to its website and wrote: “The Official Melania Meme is live! You can buy $MELANIA now.”
The lawsuit claims Trump was used as “window dressing for a crime engineered by Meteora and Kelsier.” In the case of $MELANIA, Kelsier Labs "allegedly recruited a network of crypto influencers to promote the coin on social media for a fee."
And while the coin did well on its launch, according to The Independent, "it has reportedly since lost 95 percent of its worth."
“Investors reasonably interpreted the use of Melania Trump’s name and likeness as evidence of legitimacy and due diligence – trusting that no one of her stature would knowingly associate with a fraudulent venture,” the latest version of the complaint contends.“
"The misuse of Melania Trump’s name magnified the harm,” the amended complaint concludes.
“It corrupted public trust and injected an element of political and cultural credibility into what was, in reality, a standard pump-and-dump.”