A major worldwide investment scam operating out of the Canaries is turning out be much bigger than originally anticipated, with police now saying the fraudsters may have netted hundreds of millions of euros.
Further details have been released in the past few days of the investigations that led to the arrests in late June of five people in the Canaries alleged to have played key roles in conning investors.
Police say the ringleader of the massive operation ran his business from a co-working office in Las Palmas, which served as the base for a worldwide network that recruited unsuspecting victims for an elaborate Ponzi scam. The gang offered high rates of return for investment in crypto and foreign currencies on the well-known FX Winning platform.
However, payments made initially to those who signed up to keep them on board were never the product of investments but from fresh money obtained as more people joined the elaborate scheme, which relied on new investors to sustain it.
According to the specialist fraud agency tasked with uncovering the criminal activities of the scammers, FX Winning persuaded around 15,000 people from almost 30 countries to sign up to the scheme, which allegedly netted it over 460 million euros by the time it collapsed.
It is thought that up to 500 victims in Spain, many of them in the Canaries, lost a total of 39 million euros to the fraudsters. A large number of the Spanish victims have joined a class action brought by a prestigious firm of Madrid lawyers.
Reports of highly suspicious ‘investment’ activities emerged a few years ago, leading a senior Spanish judge to order the Civil Guard’s Financial Crimes Branch to investigate discreetly.
A detailed report stretching to over 400 pages and outlining the activities of the group led to the June arrests and confirmed the steps taken by the ringleader to cover his tracks. According to officers, over thirty companies of various kinds were set up worldwide to hamper the traceability of the money generated by the scheme.
Two of those arrested remain in custody in Gran Canaria as efforts continue to uncover more secret firms used to hide the proceeds. According to local media, eight companies with the same registered address as the coworking office in Las Palmas have now been shown to be connected to the ringleader.
