Spanish far-right MEP Alvise Pérez has been accused of accepting money from the head of a cryptocurrency firm and not declaring it to the tax authorities following an investigation by eldiario.es published on Wednesday (25 September).
It is alleged that he accepted €100,000 from Álvaro Romillo, head of the cryptocurrency investment company Madeira Invest Club (MIC), which went bankrupt last week.
The newspaper tried to contact Pérez, a member of the right-wing ‘The Party is Over‘ (SALF) party, by phone, email, and even by contacting his advisers to get a reaction, but it has not received a response from the SALF leader
Romillo, better known on social media as ‘Criptospain’, presented himself to potential investors as an expert in tax avoidance, and offered his clients to reduce their tax payments.
With these arguments, he allegedly convinced around 30,000 people to join MIC, where he offered very high returns of more than 50 % through investments in watches, luxury cars or real estate, Euractiv’s partner EFE reported on Wednesday.
To join the Madeira Invest Club, it was necessary to make an initial deposit of €2,000, which would later be rewarded with bank transfers in cryptocurrencies.
Some of the investors were rewarded, but most were trapped in investments that do not exist.
According to sources from the Spanish Public Prosecutor’s Office quoted by eldiario.es, the total amount of the fraud could reach € 600 million.
The newspaper reported that the money, collected on 27 May, days before the European Parliament elections, was not declared to the tax authorities, thus avoiding checks from the Court of Auditors and Treasury.
SALF won three MEP seats in the 9 June EU elections, including Pérez, a young politician known for his agitation, anti-establishment, and racist discourse. He is a rival of the far-right VOX party, currently the third force in the Spanish parliament.
The far-right formation led by Pérez was a big surprise in the European elections in Spain, winning over 800,000 votes.
Pérez’s party asked last July to join the Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament, led by right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (Fratelli d’Italia). The ECR was expected to give a definitive official response to Perez this month, EFE reported in July.
The scandal came to light after Romillo handed over documents to the Spanish Public Prosecutor’s Office a few days ago that he claims supports the allegations of fraudulent acts.
According to eldiario.es, the crypto platform Madeira Invest Club was sponsored by Pérez, who asked Romillo to provide him with the money in cash so that these funds would not be under official scrutiny.
The leader of SALF allegedly received the €100,000 from the Madeira Invest platform to promote the scam at various public events of the far-right party in Spain.
To support his version of the facts before the Spanish Prosecutor’s Office, Romillo included as evidence conversations from digital messaging services – including Telegram – in which Pérez participates, accompanied by an expert report attesting to the veracity of the documents, eldiario.es reported.
The Spanish Prosecutor’s Office has sent the information provided to them by Romillo to the Spanish Supreme Court, which will now investigate the case, EFE reported.
Pérez enjoys parliamentary immunity as an MEP.
Alvise’s fake “donation” of his MEP salary
Pérez’s final target, according to the SALF leader in his messages to Romillo, was to collect “between €300,000- €360,000” to cover the election campaign and pay various “suppliers” of the far-right party.
According to sources familiar with the case, he only managed to obtain € 100,000 euros, due to the growing liquidity problems of the cryptocurrency investment platform, which eventually led to its bankruptcy.
In his messages to Romillo, Pérez explains that the money would also be used to finance one of his most controversial campaign promises: to donate his salary as an MEP, which he then claims, in private, he was not actually willing to give up.
“How can I give up 100% of my public salary? I can use it to finance my political adventure”, Pérez says in one of his messages.
[Edited by Alice Taylor-Braçe/OwenMorgan]
Source: euractiv.com
