Quick and easy money. The promise of stratospheric returns. Retiring from the world of work on top of a Ferrari. The proliferation of scammers around the world of cryptocurrencies in recent years has resulted in hundreds of lawsuits filed in court representing more than 17,000 victims. According to the lawyers, they are barely the tip of an iceberg with an amount that amounts to more than 1,000 million euros.
First of all, a precision: there is nothing illegal or bad about investing in cryptocurrencies, although it is worth knowing that it is a speculative, highly volatile and high-risk product. The judicial problem lies in the large amount of fraud between brokers and applications that act as intermediaries when operating with digital currencies.
“It is a real drama in society that is lived in silence. We have seen cases of people losing 300,000 euros, of which they have only invested 30,000 and the rest are bank credits. Many do not report because of the feeling of guilt”, says Fernando Navas, head of new technologies at the Navas office
In view of the collective deceptions, associations have been created such as Cryptocurrency Users, advised by the Aránguez firm, or Affected by Investments in Cryptocurrencies (AAIC), promoted by Zaballos Abogados, which channel thousands of complaints to the ‘ National Court and different courts. The first association figures at 12,000 those affected in their complaints, while the second has around 5,000. Added to this are the dozens of offices that handle individual complaints.
Francisco Jiménez, general manager of Zaballos Abogados, categorizes cryptocurrency fraud into three large groups. The first is that of pyramid scams, in which a broker or platform pretends to invest in cryptocurrencies in exchange for a return, when in reality it has kept the money and only pays thanks to the contributions of new scammers. The second is that of the creators of their own cryptocurrency, whose value evaporates when the founders keep the investments. The third is that of individual scams, through direct contacts via social networks or WhatsApp. The three methods lead to one conclusion: “It’s a big casino in which the same scammers often get scammed,” warns Jiménez.
Carlos Aránguez, director of Aránguez Abogados and professor of Criminal Law at the University of Granada, explains that the frauds are “very sophisticated” and affect both young and old people. Among them are highly qualified professionals, including engineers with knowledge in the field. “In some cases, information platforms on crypto-assets such as MetaTrader 5 can be supplanted. It’s as if Argentina were winning football in Spain and you were being told on a screen that Spain won five to zero”.
Law firms also receive famous images of those who have been impersonated, often through websites from “uncooperative” countries such as Laos or Bangladesh. Pablo Motos, Risto Mejide or Gran Wyoming are some of the personalities most used by fraudsters, who also simulate messages from the Bank of Spain or the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV). The same market watchdog is investigating social network X for false advertising of cryptocurrencies.
