The head of the Central Court of Instruction number 4 of the National Court, José Luis Calama, has agreed to provisional imprisonment without bail for Álvaro Romillo Castillo, the cryptocurrency businessman who confessed to having financed the European election campaign of the leader of Se Acabó La Fiesta (SALF) Luis Pérez, Alvise. The judge, in accordance with the criteria of the Prosecutor’s Office, assesses the risk of flight after being accused of serious crimes of fraud of more than 260 million euros.
Romillo ―also known as Cryptospain o Luis Crypto– was arrested this Thursday by the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard by order of the judge who activated the arrest after making sure that the risk that the businessman would not attend his statement as a defendant this Friday was real. The agents, in collaboration with the Tax Agency, had located movements of money in the
The businessman is accused of fraud, criminal organization and money laundering for being the creator of the Madeira Invest Club (MIC), a “financial beach bar”, in the words of the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), which was dedicated to attracting investors for virtual works of art, gold, boats, cars and other luxury goods offering “minimum returns of 20% per year”.
Legal sources explain that the researchers work with the thesis that Cryptospain He decapitalized the investment platform little by little to keep the money. What’s more, Judge Calama has sent to the Plaza de Castilla courts all the evidence that points to a crime of confiscation of assets because in recent months the businessman has been putting all his companies in the name of people around him.
In the statement that he gave before the instructor this Friday, Romillo defended that he intended to pay all the investors and that his intention has always been to collaborate with justice. He has assured that he returned money to many of the 2,700 affected, but he did so in cash and, therefore, he has no way of justifying them. The judge and the prosecutor, on the other hand, have shown disbelief 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 per month was a rental that his family lent him.
In recent months, the UCO has been unraveling a complex network of shell companies and bank accounts distributed between Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Albania, the Dominican Republic, the United States, Singapore, Belgium, Thailand and Hong Kong. The businessman has acknowledged that he did business abroad to avoid paying taxes in Spanish territory and has admitted that he does not have any type of studies in finance.
According to the judge, the businessman developed a “fraudulent business of massively raising funds that were diverted to his own assets” taking advantage of “his popularity on social networks, between January 2023 and September 2024.
Popular accusations, such as those made by Emilia Zaballos and Francisco Jiménez, have joined the Prosecutor’s request for prison. Sources present at the interrogation explain that Romillo has contradicted himself on several occasions; at the end of August, he recovered three terminals from thieves in his home. Although he reported that the thieves had taken 36 luxury watches and two million euros in cryptocurrencies, this Friday he explained that the assailants did not see 12,000 euros in a hiding place with which he has continued to live and travel these months.
