Joint operation between the Tax Agency and the National Police

• Eleven people arrested, including the four people responsible for a network that allegedly defrauded more than 5.1 million euros from those affected, to whom it had been promising high returns since the launch of the "Ponzi" type scheme in 2018

• The pyramidal structure had its epicenter in the Cadiz town of Chiclana de la Frontera and branches in Cantabria and Alicante.

• During the investigations, statements have been taken from more than 160 victims and 44 bank accounts related to the people and companies allegedly involved in the scam are being analysed.

April 24, 2024.- Officials of the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency and agents of the National Police have dismantled a criminal organization involved in the execution of a continuing crime of fraud, money laundering and membership in a criminal organization.

According to investigations, the criminal network would have carried out a massive "Ponzi" pyramid scam, with its epicenter in the town of Chiclana de la Frontera (Cádiz) and branches in Cantabria and Alicante, through the alleged purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies, stocks and futures. Among the eleven people arrested in the context of this operation are the four leaders of the network, one of whom has been sent to prison.

During the investigation, 164 victims have been questioned, and the organisation allegedly defrauded them of more than 5.1 million euros by promising high returns since the scam was launched in 2018. 44 bank accounts related to the people and companies allegedly involved are being analysed.

In order to determine the existence of these practices, investigators took statements from a total of 164 affected people residing in different locations throughout the country.

These statements were of great importance in carrying out the subsequent exploitation phase of the operation, which involved eleven arrests and four raids and searches in homes and company headquarters located in Chiclana de la Frontera (Cádiz), Villafufre (Cantabria) and Elche (Alicante), related to the top leaders of the organization.

In addition to obtaining evidence through the seizure of various documents, an analysis is being carried out of bank transactions in 44 bank accounts opened by individuals and legal entities in the network in a total of 16 entities.

How the organization works

The suspects, despite lacking knowledge of the investment market and their companies not being authorised by the National Securities Market Commission as entities authorised to operate in the stock market, took advantage of the commercial structure they had at their disposal in the offices of Chiclana de la Frontera and Elche to launch a plan whose sole objective was to obtain an illicit benefit from a massive fraud, with some of those arrested turning the continued fraud into their ostentatious modus vivendi, even to the point of abandoning the exercise of their original professions.

The organization's leaders boasted on social media about their high standard of living, which included owning high-end sports cars.

Investigators detected two distinct levels of activity in the operations of the companies created to carry out the scam. On the one hand, there are the leaders, who are responsible for managing the companies, drawing up contracts and collecting and delivering capital. At a lower level, assisting the former, were the 'fixers', intermediaries who benefited by obtaining profits in relation to the new clients they brought into the pyramid structure.

As a result of the investigation, which has not been concluded due to the possibility of locating new victims, it has been possible to discover that the criminal organization had been operating since 2018.