Javier Biosca: The Crypto Broker Accused of a Ponzi Who Fell From a Balcony

On the morning of 22 November 2022, Javier Biosca died in a fall from the Ona Valle Romano, a hotel and golf resort in Estepona on Spain's Costa del Sol, where he was staying with his wife and son. He had been out of prison for less than a month. Legal sources told Spanish media that he had most likely taken his own life, and the National Police said its first inquiries found no sign that anyone else was involved.

Biosca, the founder of Algorithms Group, was at the centre of what Spanish media called the country's biggest cryptocurrency fraud. The first complaint against him, in 2021, described about €280 million taken from around 300 investors. By 2026 the people suing him put the alleged damage at more than €800 million. Under Spanish law, his death ended the criminal case against him. It did not end the case. Nearly four years later, his widow and son are still under investigation, and the investigating judge has extended the inquiry to February 2027.

Twenty-five per cent a week

Biosca ran an online marketing business in Torrijos, near Toledo, before reinventing himself as a crypto investment guru. According to Forbes Argentina's reconstruction of the case, he set up Algorithms Group in London in March 2019 and began taking money from friends, then from friends of friends. He promised to invest it in Bitcoin, Ether and Litecoin, digital currencies whose prices swing far more than shares do.

The promised returns were 20 to 25 per cent a week. A good year on the stock market returns around 10 per cent. Biosca was offering more than that every seven days. He was not registered with the CNMV, Spain's stock market regulator, as an investment adviser, and the Audiencia Nacional, Spain's national criminal court, later found signs that he had invented the experience and resources he claimed.

Prosecutors and the victims' lawyers say the scheme was a Ponzi: the "returns" paid to early investors came from the deposits of later ones, not from trading. That works only while new money keeps arriving. Paid promoters recruited clients across Spain, and lavish recruitment parties, one of them billed as "The Bitcoin Party", showed off the lifestyle the profits supposedly paid for. Investors reportedly included judges, notaries and tax inspectors. Some of the investors were themselves bitcoin investment platforms that had put their clients' money into Algorithms Group. From early 2020, according to the accusation, Biosca stopped paying most of them.

Prison, bail and prison again

In May 2021 the Association of People Affected by Cryptocurrency Investments, represented by the lawyer Emilia Zaballos, filed a mass complaint. In June 2021 Biosca was detained in Torrox, Málaga, when a routine Guardia Civil check showed a warrant for his arrest. Judge Alejandro Abascal of the Audiencia Nacional sent him to prison while the case was investigated, on suspicion of fraud, misappropriation and forgery; money laundering and other charges were added later.

In late March 2022 the court's appeals chamber agreed to release him on €1 million bail, with his passport taken and regular court check-ins. Zaballos called it an invitation to flee. In July 2022, after the person who had guaranteed the bail asked for the money back, the judge sent Biosca back to prison, citing a clear risk that he would run. On 28 October 2022 a second guarantor put up another €1 million and he was released again. Twenty-five days later he was dead.

Questions after the fall

The victims' lawyers did not accept the suicide account at face value. Zaballos asked the court to stop the body from being buried or cremated until its identity had been checked and a post-mortem carried out, and she wanted the names of everyone who had been with him. She said the second guarantor had been with Biosca when he died, that they had been negotiating repayments to victims and the return of the bail, and that Biosca had received threats from criminal organisations that had trusted him with their money. None of those claims has been confirmed by the police or the courts, and no official finding other than suicide has been reported.

On 1 December 2022 Judge Abascal formally declared Biosca's criminal liability extinguished by his death. The civil claim against his heirs, meaning the right of victims to seek money from his estate, stayed alive. So did the investigation into his wife, Paloma Gallardo, and his son, Sergio Biosca Gallardo, who face the same allegations: fraud, illegal professional practice, money laundering, corporate offences, misappropriation and criminal association. The victims' association has accused them of acting as recruiters. Both have told the court they knew little about the business and did not take part in it, and neither has been convicted of anything.

Where the money went

Zaballos told Forbes Argentina after the death that she was convinced Gallardo held "all the keys to the cold wallets", the offline storage where crypto is kept, like cash in a home safe rather than a bank. That is an allegation from the victims' side, not a finding. Her firm has asked Spain's Asset Recovery and Management Office to trace the defendants' property so that victims can be compensated.

In an order dated 14 August 2026, reported by the news agency EFE in September, the investigating judge at Central Investigating Court No. 1 extended the inquiry until 19 February 2027, citing unresolved questions and steps still pending. One of them is whether the parts of the case involving two companies, Revena Capital and Revena Capital Trading, and the people linked to them, should stay in Spain or be handed to the Portuguese courts.

Nearly four years after Biosca's death, no one has been tried, no money has been reported returned, and the alleged loss has grown with every new count. The man the investors trusted is gone. What they can still recover depends on what investigators can find in the hands of the people around him.

If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 (US). Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741. International Association for Suicide Prevention: https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/