Spanish police arrested Santiago Fuentes, the founder, and operator of a BTC trading firm, for allegedly scamming 120,000 users. Fuentes is alleged to have raised over $1 billion with promises of huge guaranteed profits to investors. The police arrested Fuentes in one of his homes in Tenerife, an island in Spain. Fuentes is the founder of Arbicorp, a company best known for its BTC bot investment platform, Arbistar 2.0. He promised investors high profits, some as high as 1% daily return.
Fuentes charged with money laundering and fraud.
Earlier, Arbicorp froze all its users’ funds in September, sparking fears of an exit scam. The company announced that it would also shut down its trading bot after a glitch in the system led to a massive miscalculation of investor profits. Arbicorp had allegedly been overpaying its investors for 46 weeks. However, Fuentes denied claims that his company was a Ponzi scheme. The authorities are not convinced by Fuentes’ pleas of goodwill as according to local outlet La Provincial, they arrested him on October 21. Spanish authorities have charged Fuentes with fraud, money laundering, and belonging to a criminal organization.
Fuentes reassured investors of refunds repeatedly.
Fuentes had repeatedly assured investors that his firm would refund them in due time. In one of his YouTube videos, he cited that he had shot the video at his own home as proof that he wasn’t hiding or running. However, as per La Provincial, Fuentes has four homes and alternates residence every so often. According to the local news report, the police had reportedly raided all his four houses as he has been alternating residence in fear of threats on his life. The investigation into the firm began last month after a number of disgruntled investors filed charges with the police.
