Class-action lawyer against $1B Arbistar scam calls for forceful legal action

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A lawyer representing plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against an alleged billion-dollar digital currency scam is calling for forceful action against the perpetrators. The lawyer described Arbistar as the largest computer scam in Spain’s history.

As CoinGeek reported, Arbicorp, the parent company which developed the digital currency trading bot Arbistar, has been accused of defrauding over $1 billion from investors. The firm froze user funds in September, blaming a glitch in the system that led it to overpay its clients. Spanish police arrested the founder Santiago Fuentes but later released him.

Now, a lawyer leading the charge for justice against the firm is urging authorities to do more for the victims. In an interview with Spanish outlet elDiario, Carlo Aranguez criticized the pace of the judicial process against Arbicorp.

“It’s not acceptable that in the face of the largest computer scam in our country, justice is not forceful.”

The class-action lawsuit, which Aranguez is leading, is one of four against Arbicorp. The alleged Ponzi scheme defrauded over 32,000 investors, Aranguez told the outlet. The founder, Fuentes, has repeatedly denied that he scammed his investors. He claims that a glitch led the firm to overpay profits to investors, ultimately necessitating the freezing of funds. In a video three months ago, he claimed that he would refund all his investors.

However, according to Aranguez, Arbicorp was nothing but a scam that used late stage investors’ funds to pay earlier investors. The lawyer represents a group of 130 people who collectively lost €4 million.

“If 130 have lost four million euros, the overall volume is impressive. We are facing the largest computer scam in our country. None had reached this volume.”

While he appreciates that the peculiar nature of the class-action lawsuit requires specialized legal focus, he called on Spanish authorities to move faster.

The lawyer noted that scams like Abicorp are gaining popularity across Spain. He attributed this to the failure of traditional financial and investment systems which have disadvantaged smaller investors. They, in turn, explore riskier options which in some cases like Abicorp, end up being scams.

Follow CoinGeek’s Crypto Crime Cartel series, which delves into the stream of groups—from BitMEX to Binance, Bitcoin.com, Blockstream, ShapeShift and Ethereum—who have co-opted the digital asset revolution and turned the industry into a minefield for naïve (and even experienced) players in the market.