Alvaro Romillo, the founder of Madeira Club Invest (MIC), the financial club sponsored by Alvise Pérez and which closed its doors a week ago after failing to achieve the high returns it promised its investors, has not only sent a letter to the Public Prosecutor’s Office confirming that he paid 100,000 euros in cash to the leader of Se fin la Fiesta (SALF) during the European campaign. He has also sent telephone conversations and audio messages to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in which he describes his relationship with the already MEP. Among the conferences offered, there are different offers from Alvise Pérez to make entrance hall in Brussels for the cryptocurrency sector and even promote laws in Spain in favor of the business of the Madeira Invest Club when, as it is estimated, it will happen, “the key to the government with Feijóo and Abascal.”
The documentation in the possession of the Public Ministry includes months of conversations by messaging between Alvise Pérez and Romillo, audios and even a recent conference from two weeks ago in which the MEP offers the founder of the MIC European funds, influence in the European Parliament and laws in Spain for the benefit of your company. On the afternoon of this Tuesday, this newspaper tried to contact the MEP by phone, email and one of his advisors and did not receive a response. This Wednesday, he addressed his followers in a video in which he does not explain the information from elDiario.es, he limits himself to announcing the arrival of a “catharsis” and alludes to the “media mafia”.
The most obvious conversation between the MEP and Romillo, who goes by the name Luis CryptoSpain, took place on September 13, two months after Alvise, according to what the crypto businessman told the prosecutor’s office, collected 100,000 euros in cash at the offices of the Madrid club. Money that he said he needed to cover electoral expenses, compensation for lawsuits and that, above all, had to escape the control of the Court of Auditors.
“Don’t think that I forget you, that I am a man of my word,” Alvise promised his interlocutor during that interview, while assuring him that both of them – the crypto businessman who would close the company three days later and he – were on the same page, fighting: for “financial freedom” and against “tax plunder.” Alvise offered his services to the founder of MIC with these words: “It is a historic impulse. In what sense? In the sense that the polls are bringing me ever closer to being the key to the government with Feijóo and Abascal, which means that in a possible government agreement I can put as much as possible [condición] sine qua non condition a series of laws [sic] related to bitcoin, etc. In other words, it’s really a battle between what is the nation state and what is financial freedom. That’s why I’m trying to figure out how I deal with this issue because I want to defend… well, I don’t know, you know? “Defend your business, defend Bitcoin and, I mean, I’m going to talk to you about it first.”
The promise to legislate in favor of the owner of this investor club, which ended up closing after offering returns of over 30% and which the CNMV had classified as a financial chiringuito, was verbalized by Alvise just two days before the Madeira Invest Club closed. The official explanation for the end of its operations was that its proximity to the politician and some media reports had put too much emphasis on MIC, which, after seeing its accounts in Portugal blocked, decided to cease its activities. Following the interruption of payments, hundreds of investors filed fraud complaints with the National Court. Many of them had come to the financial club thanks to an event sponsored by Alvise at the Hippodromo de la Zarzuela last spring. This is also where the politician’s promise, in the middle of a pre-campaign to legislate in favor of the crypto world, was born.
According to the documents provided by the prosecution, on April 9, three days after participating in that massive event at the racetrack, Alvise explained to Romillo in a text message that he needed “funds that do not require to be controlled by the Court of Auditors.”, to face “certain fines.” He assured that being the key to a future government was “something relatively achievable with the current political fragmentation” and some polls that predicted its takeoff. In this context, Alvise wrote to his interlocutor: “In this position, we can influence the legislation regarding financial and civil freedom.”
Message of April 9: “Influencing legislation”.
On May 22, a few days before receiving the 100,000 euros in cash from the founder of the MIC, Alvise wrote another text message to Romillo: “The investigations give me up to two euros deputies. [sic]. If I can get in, we could organise discussions in the European Parliament to put massive pressure on the document. [sic] currencies and fiscal independence. I would love that.”
Message of May 22: “Organize discussions in the European Parliament”.
Other communications that the founder of the Madeira Invest Club provides to the prosecutor’s office in case this whole operation “constitutes a crime” reveal how the delivery of these 100,000 euros in cash was falsified through the Sentinel offices in Madrid. Romillo and Pérez discuss the recording of a video in which the leader of the SALF would be in charge of publicizing the advantages of this cash deposit system that includes 5,000 safes and other assets in total anonymity in a bunker located in the heart of the capital.
They even considered recording in front of their offices, in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Madrid, which they ultimately postponed because of the noise it could generate on the eve of the elections. “During the election campaign, it would be very visible. After 9J, I am much more free from everything,” Alvise wrote to him on May 27.
Message from May 27: “On the 3rd, so can you record?”
On June 10, in a message sent to Romillo a day after winning three seats with SALF in the European elections, Alvise responded to the MIC leader’s congratulations: “Now lobby in Europe for freedom! Including cryptography. And during the summer they plan to record a video in Ibiza with two well-known influencers.
Three months after the elections, on September 16, this financial vehicle announced its closure in a video in which its founder stated that he could not pay investors due to the blocking of his bank accounts, which he attributed to the news of his links with Alvise, the leader who promoted his financial club even after knowing that the CNMV had classified it as a “financial beach bar” after warning that it did not have a license.
In a telephone conversation granted a few weeks ago to the prosecutor’s office, the leader of SALF also promised the founder of MIC “to present to the European Parliament 10,000 measures for the defense of cryptocurrencies and the companies that operate with them.” He directly proposed to Romillo to go to Strasbourg to “give a conference”: “You are more than invited,” he told him, while proposing to finance it with public funds from the European Parliament.
The relationship between the leader of SALF and the founder of the bankrupt investment club began at the end of March this year, according to documents that the latter submitted to the prosecutor’s office. More than a month after Alvise Pérez announced on his Telegram channel that he was a candidate for the European elections and made public some of his big promises, such as the drawing of his salary.
The conversations between the two continued until a few days ago. In the interview on September 13, the founder tried to distance himself from the politician. A few hours earlier, El Confidencial had just published a story entitled: Alvise diverts campaign donations to accounts with money from a beach bar, reported by the CNMV. The founder of MIC openly tells Alvise that it is not the time to do things together now that the spotlight is on both of them.
Alvise responds with a sentence that alludes to the double benefit that these months of collaboration have brought him: “It’s a financial paradigm shift, man. For me, what I like, let’s see, money, okay, such… but above all, it’s the war that we wage for financial freedom, which is essential, right? That’s why I tell you that in the end, it has more symbolism than it seems, and that you are writing the history of this century, this is how we defend ourselves from fiscal plunder. That’s why I tell you that if I can help you or anything, tell me.”
The law on party financing prohibits anonymous donations and establishes that political parties cannot accept or receive directly or indirectly from the same person donations exceeding 50,000 euros per year, nor donations from legal entities. Furthermore, any donation exceeding 25,000 euros must be notified to the Court of Auditors by the political party within three months of its acceptance.
When the Madeira Invest Club suddenly closed its doors on September 16, it had captivated hundreds of investors with the exorbitant returns it offered, up to 53%, on supposed investments in digital and intangible works of art and other luxury goods.
The National Court has already received several complaints from affected persons, who have filed complaints against those responsible for crimes of fraud, embezzlement, criminal organization, falsification of commercial documents or money laundering. In his letter to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Romillo proposed to liquidate his assets to compensate investors, who may number several hundred for an amount of several tens of millions of euros, according to the aforementioned complaints, and to make available to them several million euros. euros that, according to his defense, remain in the blocked accounts of Portuguese banks.
