Quick and easy money. The promise of stratospheric returns. Retire from the working world riding a Ferrari. The proliferation in recent years of scammers around the world of cryptocurrencies has resulted in hundreds of cases opened in court on behalf of more than 17,000 affected people. According to the lawyers, they barely represent the tip of an iceberg whose amount amounts to more than 1,000 million euros.
First of all, a clarification: there is nothing illegal or bad about investing in cryptocurrencies, although it is worth knowing that it is a speculative, very volatile and high-risk product. The judicial problem is found in the large number of frauds between brokers and applications that act as intermediaries when operating with digital currencies.
“It is a real drama in society that is carried out in silence. We have seen cases of people who lose 300,000 euros, of which they have only put in 30,000 and the rest are credits from the bank. Many do not report because of the feeling of guilt,” says Fernando Navas, head of new technologies at the Navas office.
In the face of collective deceptions, associations have been created such as Cryptocurrency Users, advised by the Aránguez firm, or Those 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 estimates that 12,000 people are affected by their complaints, while the second has about 5,000. Added to this are the dozens of offices that handle individual complaints.
Francisco Jiménez, general director of Zaballos Abogados, categorizes cryptocurrency frauds into three large groups. The first is 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 remunerates thanks to the contributions of new scammers.
The second is that of the creators of their own cryptocurrency, whose value disappears as the founders keep the investments. The third is individual scams, through direct contacts via social networks or WhatsApp. The three methods lead to one conclusion: “It is a great casino where the scammers themselves are often scammed,” Jiménez warns.
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 people and the elderly. There are among them highly qualified professionals, including engineers with knowledge in the field.
"In some cases, computer information platforms on crypto assets such as MetaTrader 5 are supplanted. It is as if Argentina were beating Spain in soccer and they were telling you on a screen that Spain wins five to zero."
Celebrities whose image has been impersonated also come to law firms, 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 market supervisor itself investigates the social network X for false advertising of cryptocurrencies.
