The head of the Central Court of Education number 4 of the National Court, José Luis Calama, has agreed to the provisional detention without bail for Álvaro Romillo Castillo, the cryptocurrency entrepreneur who confessed to having financed the European election campaign of Se Acabó La Fiesta (SALF) leader Luis Pérez, Alvise. The judge, according to the prosecutor’s criteria, assesses the risk of flight after being accused of serious fraud crimes for over 260 million euros.
Romillo ―also known as Cryptospain OR Luis Crypto– was arrested on Thursday by the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Guardia Civil on the orders of the judge who activated the arrest after ascertaining that there was a real risk that the entrepreneur would not show up for his deposition as a defendant this Friday. The agents, in collaboration with the Revenue Agency, had identified movements of money abroad for a maximum of 29 million euros.
The businessman is accused of fraud, criminal organization and money laundering for being the creator of the Madeira Invest Club (MIC), a “beach financial bar”, in the words of the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), which was dedicated to attracting investors in virtual works of art, gold, boats, cars and other luxury goods by offering “minimum returns of 20% per year”.
Legal sources explain that researchers work with the thesis that Cryptospain It gradually decapitalized the investment platform to retain the money. Furthermore, Judge Calama sent to the Plaza de Castilla court all the evidence that suggests a crime of confiscation of assets because in recent months the entrepreneur has put all his companies up for sale in the name of people around him.
In the statement made before the instructor on Friday, Romillo defended that he intended to pay all the investors and that his intention has always been to collaborate with justice. He assured that he had returned money to many of the 2,700 affected, but he did so in cash and, therefore, has no way of justifying them. The judge and the public prosecutor, however, appeared incredulous in several parts of Romillo’s interrogation, according to sources present during it, for example when he explained that the 800 square meter chalet in which he lived in Madrid and for which he paid 20,000 euros a month was rent that his family had lent him.
In recent months the UCO has dismantled a complex network of shell companies and bank accounts spread across Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Albania, the Dominican Republic, the United States, Singapore, Belgium, Thailand and Hong Kong. The entrepreneur admitted to having done business abroad to avoid paying taxes in Spanish territory and admitted that he did not have any type of finance studies.
According to the judge, the entrepreneur developed “a fraudulent activity of massive collection of funds diverted from his assets” taking advantage “of his popularity on social networks, between January 2023 and September 2024”.
Popular accusations were added to the request for imprisonment made by the Prosecutor’s Office, such as those of Emilia Zaballos and Francisco Jiménez. Sources present during the interrogation explain that Romillo contradicted himself on several occasions, explaining for example that he only had one cell phone and then admitting that after the attack by thieves in his home at the end of August, he recovered three terminals. Although he reported that the thieves had taken 36 luxury watches and two million euros in cryptocurrencies, he explained on Friday that the attackers did not see 12,000 euros in a cache with which he continued to live and travel in recent months.
