A category motion lawsuit filed within the Southern District of New York accuses Meteora co-founder Benjamin Chow of orchestrating a scientific fraud scheme that weaponized superstar endorsements from Melania Trump and Argentine President Javier Milei to defraud retail crypto traders of at the least $57 million.
The Second Amended Class Motion Criticism alleges Chow and associates operated the Meteora-Kelsier Enterprise as a “fraud manufacturing unit” disguised as decentralized finance, utilizing the Meteora liquidity-pooling protocol on Solana because the core engine for multi-token pump-and-dump operations throughout $M3M3, $LIBRA, $MELANIA, $ENRON, and $TRUST.
Plaintiffs Omar Hurlock, Anuj Mehta, and John Winslow declare that defendants exploited technical settings, like whitelists and freeze/thaw toggles, to amass a majority of the token provides at negligible value earlier than manufacturing synthetic value spikes by means of undisclosed paid influencers.
Forensic evaluation recognized a central coordinating pockets, prefixed 0xcEA, that repeatedly funded deployer wallets, creating tokens, seeding preliminary liquidity, and financing sniper wallets that captured early provide.
The lawsuit seeks disgorgement of all earnings, trebling of compensatory damages beneath RICO statutes, and appointment of a professional impartial receiver over Meteora’s upgradeable smart-contract packages.
Six-Step Fraud Playbook Exploited Movie star Endorsements
The grievance particulars a scientific playbook used throughout all tokens.
It begins with narrative invention utilizing borrowed fame, then rigging provide by means of insider-funded accounts that execute opening-second orders, manufacturing hype by means of undisclosed paid Key Opinion Leaders, and engineering value spikes utilizing Meteora’s pool controls to pause public buying and selling till insider positions are secured.
It additionally includes executing extraction by promoting huge positions whereas draining liquidity, and reinventing the scheme with new themes however recycled tooling.
The $LIBRA fraud exemplified this sample when Argentine President Javier Milei’s verified social media account posted the contract handle on the precise second swimming pools opened in February 2025, triggering a retail stampede.
The marketing campaign styled $LIBRA as a patriotic Argentine revival initiative promising to fund small companies.
Inside hours of launch, the deployer pockets withdrew over $110 million in USDC stablecoin liquidity, stripping the token of its basis and inflicting instantaneous value collapse, coinciding with Milei’s post-retraction.
A gaggle of Argentine #crypto traders have launched a lawsuit towards Javier Milei, an outspoken MP and bitcoin advocate who needs to run for president.
Learn extrahttps://t.co/MplcXKW6rI
— Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews) August 23, 2022
The $MELANIA fraud marketed the token because the official meme coin of Melania Trump, with claimed vesting mechanisms to guard towards dumping.
Wallets linked to the Meteora-Kelsier cluster accrued roughly one-third of all the provide in minutes earlier than the official launch.
After orchestrated hype, insider wallets dumped tokens into the surge, with the worth subsequently shedding over 90% of market capitalization inside days.
Kelsier Ventures CEO Hayden Davis, who co-founded each $LIBRA and $MELANIA, said in a YouTube interview that “we sniped our personal coin to forestall snipers from sniping our personal coin.“
Chow Resigned in February, Now Faces RICO Prices
Again in February 2025, Ben Chow stepped down from Meteora following the $LIBRA controversy, with Jupiter co-founder Meow stating that, whereas assured in Chow’s character, he confirmed “an absence of judgment and care about among the core facets of the challenge.”
A leaked video posted by SolanaFloor confirmed DeFiTuna founder Dhirk informing Chow about Davis’s misconduct, with Chow expressing seen shock and stating, “I really feel so sick, as a result of I gave him Melania. I fucked up as a result of I enabled the man that ought to not have been enabled.“
The lawsuit alleges that Chow maintained distinctive experience in controlling know-how, directing the configuration of liquidity swimming pools, payment routing, buying and selling parameters, and the flexibility to freeze or thaw buying and selling selectively.
Kelsier Labs secretly agreed to speculate roughly $2 million into Meteora’s operations as a pay-to-play buy-in.
Whistleblower communications verify Hayden Davis acted beneath Chow’s directions on greater than fifteen token launches, establishing central command.
The grievance asserts seven causes of motion, together with fraud, conspiracy to defraud, RICO violations for a sample of racketeering exercise consisting of hundreds of wire fraud acts, misleading practices beneath New York Normal Enterprise Regulation, and unjust enrichment.
The timing coincides with broader scrutiny of Trump household crypto ventures, which reportedly generated $1 billion in pre-tax features over the previous yr.
The $TRUMP and $MELANIA cash generated roughly $427 million, whereas each tokens skilled dramatic declines in the course of the presidential inauguration, with $MELANIA’s market cap plummeting from $2 billion to $790 million.
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