Editor’s note: This article was first published in November 2011, when a Madrid court had just opened an investigation into Bosques Naturales. The figures it cites, about 10,000 investors and around 35 million euros, are from that moment, and the outcome of the case is not covered.
The OCU (Spain’s main consumer organisation) warned back in 2010 that investing in “Bosques Naturales” could be a scam. Now a court in Madrid is investigating this possible pyramid scheme run by the investment company, which managed to attract the savings of around 10,000 people.
Neither the investors nor the savers, who were drawn in by high returns, can currently get their money back. The alleged fraud could amount to around 35 million euros.
Need we say more?
Heading this fundraising operation was Angel Briones, the man responsible for the Forum Filatélico scam, an earlier “investment” that hurt more than 250,000 savers. Some of them will recover part of their savings (hardly all of it), since we should remember that investments of this kind are not covered by any guarantee fund.
Little is known so far about where the savers’ money is, so we’ll have to wait for the court to finish its investigation, although for now the signs point to a new Forum Filatélico.
Featured image: Pethrus, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
