Unete: the Spanish bitcoin scam that has claimed 22,000 victims

Jos¨¦ Manuel Ram¨ªrez Marco had a dream: the unete, a digital currency that could be used to buy and sell things on the internet. It would be worth one US dollar, and serve as a way of avoiding the ups and downs of the currency market. Outside the control of any government or financial institution, it was launched in 2013.

Since then, 41-year-old Ram¨ªrez has convinced some 22,000 investors around the world to put €50 million into his scheme. The problem is that because the currency is digital, nobody can get their hands on it. A complex network of tax havens and frozen bank accounts is to blame, according to those close to this alleged fraud. More than 100 of the 6,000 Spaniards who bought into the scheme have already begun legal action.

More than 100 of the 6,000 Spaniards who bought into the scheme have already brought legal action

¡°I have 8,000 unetes that I cannot convert to euros,¡± says Carmen Ram¨ªrez, a pensioner from C¨®rdoba.

¡°This is a pyramid scheme,¡± adds Pablo P, from M¨¢laga.

¡°Jos¨¦ Manuel told us he was setting up a unete bank, and we believed him,¡± says businessman Alain Tamellini, who bought €18,000 worth of the cyber currency.

The first stage in the process was converting euros to unetes. This involved a transfer to Union Business Online Ltd, located in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, a former British colony and now tax haven in the Caribbean. ¡°His businesses handled up to €70 million,¡± says Adri¨¢n Trigo, a former partner of Ram¨ªrez.

Funds were then transferred to accounts in Malta, Romania and Latvia. Trigo says that up to €1.5 million was being paid into Ram¨ªrez¡¯s accounts every day at one point. ¡°He told me that he was created a holding in Switzerland to protect the money,¡± says another former employee who learned the ins and outs of the business. EL PA?S has tried to contact Ram¨ªrez, who is reported to be living outside Spain, according to various sources.

The unete collapsed in April 2014 when Latvian bank Rietumu froze Ram¨ªrez¡¯s accounts as part of an investigation into money laundering. He told investors that some Russian clients had been misusing the currency, which had set off alarms in Latvia. Rietumu has declined to talk to EL PA?S. The unete is now worthless.

Originally from Valencia, Ram¨ªrez started out in the M¨¢laga resort town of Torremolinos in the 1980s, working in a nightclub. ¡°He spent all the time glued to a computer. He thought he was going to get rich,¡± says his former boss, Alain Tamellini. After a period in London, Ram¨ªrez focused on investment schemes based in Panama. His name is linked to System World Investment, which operated under the brand name Dextraplus. Spain¡¯s CNMV markets watchdog described Dextraplus in March 2009 as ¡°a financial scam,¡± mentioning Ram¨ªrez by name.

Ram¨ªrez was working in Panama with a company called Finanzas Forex, owned by Germ¨¢n Cardona, who was sent to prison in March 2011 for setting up a pyramid scheme that scammed around €300 million from 100,000 investors from all over the world.

Ram¨ªrez got the unete idea from Sergey Mavrodi, a Russian entrepreneur who set up a scheme in the 1990s that ruined thousands of small investors. ¡°Jos¨¦ Manuel was obsessed with Mavrodi,¡± says one former collaborator, adding that his former boss was constantly trying to work out how to set up a bank, an alternative financial system, and even a city, to be called Unetecity.

To publicize his business, Ram¨ªrez posted videos on YouTube, as well as organizing presentations. ¡°We are a sound company. Our holding was set up in 2008,¡± he would tell investors. The Spanish business registry shows that Ram¨ªrez set up Union Business Online in the small M¨¢laga seaside town of Rinc¨®n de la Victoria with Pilar Otero. The company has yet to have its books audited.

Ram¨ªrez¡¯s strategy was to expand internationally. He said he had set up a bank in Dubai, and opened offices in a business center in Malta. A receptionist there said last week that it has no record of Ram¨ªrez.

Talking to some of Ram¨ªrez¡¯s investors it becomes clear that he is a charismatic figure. ¡°He is a wonderful person. I love him,¡± says Gloria, based in Torremolinos, who has invested €15,000 in the unete.

investigacion@elpais.es

A children¡¯s charity in Peru

Ram¨ªrez also set up a charity, called the Unetenet Foundation, which supposedly worked with a refuge for sexually abused children in Arequipa, Peru.

He would encourage investors to give unetes to the children¡¯s home, which is run by an evangelical church. Last year, he raised around $400,000, of which only $35,000 went to the charity, according to Dar¨ªo Quintana Ju¨¢rez, the refuge¡¯s director.

He says the Unetenet Foundation organized a campaign in 2013 to raise funds to buy a bus for the refuge. Around $60,000 was handed over, but the vehicle never arrived, he says.

Meanwhile, Ram¨ªrez went on encouraging his investors to donate to the foundation. ¡°The donation button works. You just have to give whatever your heart tells you so that these children are able to eat. Please, help the children!¡± he wrote on his Facebook page in 2014. The head of the children¡¯s home says Ram¨ªrez told him the foundation was registered in Spain, but the Culture Ministry says it has no record of it.