The judge charges the founder of the Kuailian platform for an alleged pyramid scheme with cryptocurrencies | Economy

Joaquín Gadea, judge of the National High Court, has charged David Ruiz de León, founder of the Kuailian platform, a company supposedly specialized in investing in cryptocurrencies. The magistrate has decided to call to declare the businessman as being investigated on May 27, as stated in a resolution issued this Thursday and to which EL PAÍS has had access. Since April 2021, the instructor has kept a case open on Kuailian for alleged fraud, money laundering, falsehood and crimes against the Public Treasury. The investigations focus on whether an alleged millionaire pyramid scheme was concocted that affected thousands of people.

When you activated the Kuailian case After receiving the complaint from several injured parties, Judge Gadea already explained that the suspects advertised through their website and social networks an investment system in cryptocurrencies through an entity (Kuailian App) based in Estonia, but which operated from Spain. This promised high profits. To get them, his followers had to get hold of a product called kuais, which they bought by paying with the ethereum cryptocurrency —which they had previously purchased with euros—. “The plaintiffs denounce the breach of the agreed conditions, and that they are denied the reimbursement of the agreed yields,” stressed the magistrate: “It is pointed out that the price of ethereum was 200 dollars when they acquired this product, which subsequently increased until reach $2,000.

But in addition, according to the instructor, they had allegedly devised a system of “mass recruitment” of potential investors. “The clients [también], according to the agreed conditions, they could get more affiliates for the platform through their account, and received 10% of the investment of those recruited in their first level, 3% of those in the second level, 2% in the third level and so on up to a total of 20% invested by each one. This generated an exponential network of massive uptake […] The attraction of new investors would feed the base of the pyramid, allowing the restitution and payment of benefits to the initial investors, without the operation responding to a real business, ”said the judge in an order.

The investigation of Kuailian case took a hit this week. as it progressed The confidential, the National Police arrested four people responsible for the platform; and international search and arrest warrants have been issued against two others. According to legal sources, the magistrate has decreed this Friday the release of the four arrested (Javier H., Carlos RG, Daniel JM and Esteban AA), but he has withdrawn their passports, has prohibited them from leaving the country and they must go to sign to a court every 15 days. In turn, although the judge stressed when opening the case that the number of affected and the amount of the fraud has not yet been determined, the defendants speak of tens of thousands of victims and hundreds of millions of euros defrauded.

The magistrate has also summoned Cristian Albeiro Carmona to testify as a defendant on May 27. As detailed by Kuailian through a statement published on his website in April of last year, “Carmona is the owner of a company that offers digital asset exchange services called Crosschange, with which the Kuailian team projects plans for the future. ”. In said press release, released before the judicial process began, the company defended itself against accusations of irregularities: “The Kuailian team has the necessary tools to demonstrate to a court that its operation is real.” “Our system is not fictitious”, Ruiz de León said a month ago in a interview on the web Informed Sources: “Kuailian acts according to the law; there is no pyramid scheme.