They ask for 30 years in prison for the leader of the Arbistar scheme

Arbistar, one of the most massive cryptocurrency scam cases in the world, added a new chapter. Some 3,800 affected people presented a request for the leader of the scheme, Santiago Fuentes Jover, to be sentenced to up to 29 years and 9 months in prison.

The victims presented the request with a document before the National Court of Spain, through the study Aránguez Lawyers. This is one of the 12 groups in litigation that intervene in defense of the 8,200 victims and which, according to judicial estimates, may amount to 32,000.

The plaintiffs want to see Fuentes Jover and the other five defendants in prison, with sentences ranging from 16 to 27 years of deprivation of liberty.

According to this accusation, the “global damage” of Arbistar reaches 3.5 billion euros.

The case dates back to September 2020, when the scheme came to light “ponzi” on which the alleged scam was based. The origin took place with the closing of the community bota software in charge of doing automated cryptocurrency arbitration.

The strategy to attract investors who ended up hurt was attractive. From marketing, the firm showed itself as a trading specialist and offered a business that would have high and rapid profitability with Bitcoin (BTC).

Those who decided to add their investment would have between 8 and 15 percent weekly profit. However, the mechanics they defined were similar to what happens with pyramid schemes, in which the capital obtained by new investors supported the entire business “in which a supposed compounding (interests)”.

The document presented by the victims of Arbistar gave details of the characteristics of the operation.

«Users entered different amounts of fiat currency (euros) from their bank accounts to the cryptocurrency trading platform COINBASEwhich managed the exchange of euros to BTC, to later enter the resulting amount of cryptocurrencies from its wallet or digital purse. community bot -the alleged algorithm responsible for cryptocurrency arbitration– from the company Arbistar,” the judicial accusation states.

“Once the cryptocurrencies were sent to the Arbistar electronic wallet, the client lost control over their capital, not being able to withdraw the amount in the following two months,” the explanation continues.

The Arbistar wallet had been designed to receive cryptoassets, which were then transferred to an external bank account.

However, according to this complaining group, at “no time was there any arbitrage trading with bitcoins” nor was there any purchase of cryptocurrencies. The returns shown were fictitious.

Everything exploded when several investors tried to withdraw their funds in August 2020 and Arbistar refused to grant that refund. The maneuver materialized the following month.

“But it was on September 13, 2020, when the company decreed the closure of the community bot through a statement due to an alleged failure in the computer program that automated the purchase and sale of BTC, which had generated more interest than was actually obtained, thus producing an imbalance of accounts and freezing user funds,” says the written, as opportunely reported by CriptoNoticias.

The lawsuit of the group represented by Aránguez proposes that those injured in bitcoin be jointly and severally compensated.

Among the specified points, it was requested that civil liability will consist of the return of the amounts transferred to Arbistar plus an additional 45% for “pecuniary and moral damages.”

The path of the investigation

Santiago Fuentes Jover, accused of being responsible for the operation, has been in prison since June 26 by order of the judge. Jose Luis Calama.

At the beginning of the case, Fuentes Jover spoke with CriptoNoticias and said that he was organizing a payment plan for investors. The man, at that time, was on the run.

The ringleader of the operation is accused of committing the alleged crimes of aggravated scam, organization and direction criminalactive participation and document falsification trade.

Judge Calama has been investigating the case since 2021, after accepting the inhibition of a court in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. In July of that year, another file was opened for the alleged crime of money laundering and document falsification.

The victims’ lawyers were concerned in recent months because the judicial situation was not progressing. But everything was reactivated with the impulse of the Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court, which spoke weeks ago in harmony with the victims and requested a sentence of more than 29 years in prison for Fuentes Jove.

This judicial decision is a double guarantee for the affected people.

In his presentation, the prosecutor Joaquín González-Herrero González described the operation by Santiago Fuentes and his collaborators as a “massive and international deception,” and that Arbistar was a “legal shell” fake call with the appearance of “reality, professionalism and solvency”.

According to the indictment, the CEO of Arbistar and his partners concocted a pyramid scheme plan typical of scams, such as the so-called “friend plan,” which consisted of compensating clients who attracted new investors, or the “Arbistar club,” which promised to achieve greater profits in exchange for a stay of more than three years.

Justice confirmed that the algorithm system was never operational, according to the conclusion of a expert report prepared by the Cybercrime Department of the Central Operational Unit of the Civil Guard that intervenes in the case.