The judge of the National Court José Luis Calama has admitted the complaint bounced from the Supreme Court Prosecutor’s Office that the cryptocurrency businessman Álvaro Romillo filed against the MEP and leader of Se Acabó la Fiesta, Luis Pérez Fernández, alias Alvise, and has opened an investigation against him for alleged crimes of illegal financing.
Calama, who already has an open case against Romillo for an alleged scam with his business Madeira Invest Club that was reported by three platforms of users and victims, has chosen to open a separate piece to analyze the delivery of 100,000 euros in cash to the MEP that he himself businessman uncovered and that the purpose would be to cover the expenses of his campaign for the European Parliament.
Specifically, in an order notified this Friday, the magistrate offers Alvise, who has jurisdiction before the Supreme Court, the possibility of appearing in the proceedings and testifying voluntarily in court on November 20, as well as providing documents, propose investigative procedures and participate in the investigation of the case.
As he reasons, “the account of events contained in the complaint could constitute a crime of illegal financing of political parties” and furthermore, “the complaint is accompanied by documents that provide initial plausibility” to what it states. Thus, “the necessary requirements are met for the admission to processing of the complaint presented, and, consequently, to carry out as many investigative measures as may be necessary aimed at determining the nature and circumstances of the events, and the people who participated in them.”
100,000 euros in hand
Romillo addressed the State Attorney General’s Office days before the first complaints against him reached the National Court for the abrupt closure of Madeira Invest Club, a cryptocurrency investment business that, in exchange for a monthly fee, offered investments with very high profitability and which last year was already questioned by the National Securities Market Commission, which described the initiative as a “financial beach bar.”
In that writing, he said in self-complaint format that he met Alvise in March 2013, when he contacted him and they began to explore avenues of collaboration that would be beneficial for both of them. It was last May, when after repeated messages from the then candidate for the European Parliament accusing a lack of financing to finance the campaign, Romillo gave him, through one of his employees at the headquarters of one of his companies, 100,000 euros in cash. Alvise, after the scandal broke out, published a video on the Internet in which he acknowledged the charge and attributed it to the provision of “services” without an invoice.
The complaint traveled from the Attorney General’s Office to the Supreme Court due to his status as a certified person, but a case had already been opened in the National Court regarding Romillo and the prosecutors considered that that was where These facts should also be analyzed. After all, one of the reporting platforms was also directed against Alvise as he had contributed to publicizing Madeira Invest and thus attracting people to the alleged scam.
Hence, at the beginning of the week, the original complaint reached the National Court, where the investigator will now open a separate piece of “investigation limited to the investigation of the crime of illegal financing in order to obtain a rapid completion of the investigation.” » and «in the event that rational signs of criminality appear, formulate the corresponding reasoned exposition to the Supreme Court, taking into account Alvise’s status as a qualified person. Meanwhile, he has formally charged Romillo and summoned him on November 20.
It elaborates that “the admission of a complaint for processing does not yet constitute an act of judicial accusation, although it allows the accused to begin to defend himself in the process.” And he explains that the step now taken involves “the opening of a path for judicial investigation of facts that one or more people, acting as complainants, under their responsibility, bring to the attention of the jurisdictional body, and with respect to which, “As reported in the complaint, its criminal nature cannot be excluded.” “Naturally, the above does not prevent the possibility of a true accusation,” he adds.
Cooperation in fraud and illegal financing
In this sense, he reasons that “given the implication that in the complaint presented by Álvaro Romillo Castillo is attributed to Luis Pérez Fernández in the promotion of the allegedly illicit activity carried out through the financial network generated around Madeira Invest Club, this The latter could be considered a necessary cooperator or accomplice in the crime of aggravated fraud” that he is already investigating.
But also, “the new facts revealed” in Romillo’s complaint “could constitute a crime of illegal financing of political parties” which “punishes those people who accept and receive illegal donations or who participate in structures or organizations whose main objective is to illegally finance a party.”
On this matter, the order recalls that for the crime of party financing, “the mere delivery, or receipt” of the prohibited donation is sufficient (those of more than 50,000 euros from an individual, anonymous, finalist or revocable donations and those of legal entities), without it being necessary for the money to be spent on the specific purpose. «There is no need for acceptance or any additional procedure, but only the factual fact of delivery of the donation in question,” he emphasizes in this sense. Hence, he also accuses Romillo of the facts. He has been summoned to testify on November 20.
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