Meteora, Co-Founder Ben Chow Accused Of Fraud Tied To LIBRA, MELANIA Meme Coins
Meteora and co-founder Ben Chow are accused in an amended class-action complaint of running a fraudulent scheme involving the LIBRA and MELANIA meme coins.
In the amended complaint, the plaintiffs claimed that Meteora, Chow, and associates “borrowed” credibility from recognizable figures such as US First Lady Melania Trump and Argentina President Javier Milei.
“These faces and brands were used as props to legitimize what was actually a coordinated liquidity trap,” the plaintiffs wrote.
They also argued that the First Lady and Argentina President should not be held responsible for the tokens’ collapse because they were “merely the window dressing” for the alleged scheme.
The Six-Step Plan That Exploited Celebrity Endorsements
The plaintiffs detailed a systematic playbook that Chow and the associates used with both tokens.
The first step was to borrow someone’s fame to build a narrative around the token. Next, the supply was allegedly rigged via insider-funded accounts that executed early orders. Thereafter, hype was built around the tokens through paid Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs).
The next step was to engineer a price spike to trigger a FOMO (fear of missing out) frenzy and Meteora, through its pool controls, allegedly paused public trading until insider positions were secured.
Lastly, the plaintiffs said that the team extracted value from the tokens by selling massive positions and draining liquidity.
LIBRA was marketed as a patriotic Argentine revival initiative that promised to fund small businesses. Shortly after its launch, the token started surging. Not long thereafter, the deployer wallet for the token withdrew more than $110 million in USDC from the liquidity pool. This stripped the token of its foundation and caused an instant price collapse.
Meanwhile, the MELANIA token was positioned as the official meme coin of the First Lady. The project has also claimed that it has vesting mechanisms to protect investors from a dump.
Wallets linked to Meteora and its associates accumulated approximately 30% of the entire supply in the minutes leading up to the token’s launch.
After hype around the token led to a massive price surge, wallets belonging to insiders started selling off large amounts of the token. This caused the price to collapse, and the token lost 90% of its market value within days.
MELANIA market cap (Source: CoinMarketCap)
Meteora Founder Accused Of Being Central Figure In Fraudulent Enterprise
According to the class action complaint, Chow was “at the center of the enterprise.”
The plaintiffs also said that he assembled a team including Meteora and Jupiter co-founder Ng Ming Yeow and the Davis family of Kelsier Ventures to execute the alleged scheme.
The complaint said the team launched and marketed at least 15 tokens that followed the same six-step fraud playbook that was used with LIBRA and MELANIA. Other tokens in the scheme include ENRON, TRUST, and M3M3, the plaintiffs said.
In February, Chow said that neither he nor Meteora received any tokens or possessed insider information related to LIBRA.
He resigned from Meteora the same month
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