The National Court has sent the financier and former World Bank advisor Andrea Zanon to prison on provisional bail as allegedly responsible for a pyramid scheme through the cryptocurrency investment platform Nimbus.
The Prosecutor's Office had requested that the prison be unconditional, emphasizing that Zanon, an American national, has a high risk of escape if he is provisionally released, since he lacks roots in Spain, where he only lived for a short period of time. Judge Joaquín Gadea has agreed to prison, but that he can avoid if he provides a bail of 60,000 euros.
The financier was arrested three days ago in Barcelona, on a transit flight. This Monday he testified in court as a defendant for the crimes of belonging to a criminal organization, money laundering and aggravated fraud.
Nimbus advertising promised cryptocurrency investors high interest. Two years ago, the platform suspended operations and investors were unable to recover what they had invested. The investigation by the Civil Guard points to the scam of the platform, which was based in Malta.
The investigation began in a court in Huelva where a complaint was received from an investor who had not been able to recover the 9,000 euros invested in Nimbus. The dimension of the matter led the Supreme Court to agree that the National Court should take over the case. The Civil Guard's estimate is that the alleged pyramid scheme has reached at least 136 million euros.
In his prison order, the judge highlights that Zanon has used his resume "as a mark of trust" for Nimbus. He mentioned his past as an advisor to the former US president and as an investment and risk management advisor at the World Bank. "Several of the injured parties have confirmed that what convinced them to invest in Nimbus was the fact that Andrea Zanon was in charge of the company, since he conveyed great reliability," says the prison order.
"His extensive resume has been advertised on numerous occasions through the different channels used by that company, to serve as a claim and generate the level of trust necessary to attract investors," explains the judge. Collecting the data collected by the Civil Guard, Gadea also rejects the detainee's attempts to disassociate himself from the broken platform.
