Spanish authorities have ordered Alvaro Romillo, a prominent cryptocurrency influencer and founder of the alleged pyramid scheme Madeira Invest Club (MIC), to be held without bail on charges of orchestrating a massive $300 million fraud that defrauded thousands of investors.
Romillo was detained on Thursday after investigators discovered a Singaporean bank account containing 29 million euros ($33.5 million) linked to his corporate network.
Citing the findings as a clear demonstration of a flight risk, National Court Judge José Luis Calama asked Alvaro to be held without bail after testifying during a two-hour hearing.
More than 3,000 investors scammed in Madeira Invest Club scam
Madeira Invest Club recruited more than 3,000 victims in what investigators called a classic Ponzi scheme, collecting around 260 million euros on the pretext of offering annual returns up to 20% higher than ordinary investment securities, according to Spain’s Civil Guard.
The so-called guaranteed purchase transactions, which prosecutors now claim are completely fake, gave the company access to investment opportunities in digital artwork, yachts, Ferraris, gold and other luxury goods.
In October of the same year, authorities began investigating the alleged scheme after receiving several complaints. Romillo spent the next few months cooperating with authorities, and police seized dozens of luxury cars and other types of property.
His arrest was then necessary after prosecutors confirmed the existence of offshore accounts, raising concerns that he might flee the country.
Alvaro Romiro faces up to 18 years in prison for large-scale cryptocurrency fraud
According to documents filed in court, if the crime is considered a mass crime, it could be punishable by up to nine years in prison or 18 years in prison. At Friday’s hearing, the influencer announced her intention to return funds to affected investors, claiming that around 2,700 have already been repaid in cash, but no materials or documents were provided to support these claims.
To further confuse matters, he also confessed to making an unreported €100,000 donation to the 2024 election campaign of far-right lawmaker Luis Perez of the SALF party, who is himself the focus of an independent investigation.
The Madeira Invest Club scandal is shaping up to be one of Spain’s biggest crypto fraud cases ever, and shows how unregulated investment schemes are under increasing scrutiny in Europe.
In other crypto news, a crypto investor reportedly lost $3.05 million in Tether (USDT) as a result of a phishing attack in which he was fooled by a malicious blockchain transaction. The losses reported by blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain on Wednesday highlight the growing risk of phishing attacks for owners of digital assets.
According to investigators, the attackers exploited a widespread security vulnerability among users who only checked the first and last few characters of wallet addresses, leaving the remaining characters unchecked.
The CertiK 2025 Security Report reports that crypto investors lost more than $2.2 billion to hacks, fraud, and breaches in the first half of this year. The 34 wallet breaches alone cost approximately $1.7 billion, while 132 phishing scams cost more than $410 million.
The alleged Ponzi network and recent examples of high-value phishing thefts illustrate the growing threat associated with digital asset investments as law enforcement agencies across the region continue to crack down on fraudulent activity.