Spain: Argentinian involved in more than 7 million crypto-currencies scam

National police agents arrested in the city of Alicante and Cuenca four people of Spanish, Italian and Argentinian nationality, aged 23 to 36, accused of an alleged crime of fraud for their involvement in negotiating a deal. a significant amount of crypto-currencies (a digital currency designed to function as a medium of exchange) which, once invested, were not reimbursed to their legitimate holders.

Agents of the economic crime group of the Alicante Judicial Police Brigade, responsible for investigating economic crimes, detected various frauds, the main asset of which was this type of virtual currency, which is used as a payment system on Internet or as a new investment alternative, as reported by police in a press release.

The frauds were exposed by many victims, all agreeing that they were scammed after transferring cryptocurrencies to a company that offered to invest them and earn high returns. Therefore, the agents launched an investigation in order to find out who was behind these scams, hidden behind a non-existent company.

The deception consisted of the victims transferring their cryptocurrencies to the alleged company for management, also seeking to provide cash to acquire more virtual currency.

In order to attract the victims, they offered a high profitability and, once the virtual currencies were in the possession of the detainees, they paid them the interest generated with the contributions of the new investors in order to give an appearance of solvency, even to a certain extent. time. They stopped paying the profits and did not pay back the investment.

Scams for amounts greater than seven million euros

Continuing with the investigations, investigators were able to determine that the amount of fraudulent cryptocurrencies was over 380, so the total fraudulent money exceeded seven million euros.

Once all the investigations had been carried out, the intervening agents coordinated their actions to locate and arrest the four people involved, two men and two women, for an alleged offense of fraud, intervening in the operation of a multitude of computer equipment such as computers, tablets and phones.

One of those arrested was in Cuenca, where he had fled to take refuge against the pressure of a large number of clients to whom he had not returned his investments. Once arrested, he was placed at the disposal of the investigating court acting as a guard in that town. The other detainees were released after being heard in a statement to the Alicante police station.

The investigation remains open because the investigators are aware that there are more victims of this scam.