Thousands of young people lost 17 million in ‘copy trade’, ‘youtubers’ last promise to make them rich

Thousands small investors When they woke up on July 5th, they woke up to see how the money they had entrusted to a well-known ‘merchant’ had disappeared before it was reduced to zero euros. “Incredible. Crazy. Almost twenty million brushed”, commented, at around twelve noon on a Telegram channel, one of which has been activated for this purpose. “God, but why aren’t they talking?” ‘ another asked in a helpless tone. The group grew, and the conversation continued later, with messages of disappointment (“I’m obviously disappointed”), references to the regulator (“if a mutual fund loses that money, investigations will be opened in Spain by the CNMV”). disappointment “I think”, one of those affected concluded, “They ruined us but well and we won’t smell one”.

This responds to the name Leviathan, the “trader” who “brushed” millions, especially 17. It is operated on Roboforex, an investment platform registered in Belize and unregulated in Spain, and among other services, ‘copytrading’: An old formula of copying the moves of another expert trader, which charges a commission for being copied. “A trader’s positions are automatically copied. When this investor wins, the gain is repeated in your account as a percentage, depending on the capital you enter,” explains Diego Marín, analyst at IG Spain. There has been a lot of “boom” so far, which blew the cake.”

In the case at hand, the ‘expert’ is Leviathan. He invested in the foreign exchange market by buying and selling dollars and euros. The minimum deposit to start copying it was originally* $3,000 (currently equivalent to 3,000 Euros) and the commission he received was 25% on the profits made each day. According to the screenshot of his profile at the time, 2,324 investors came to copy it that he keeps up to date via a Telegram channel that only he can post. He posted a daily summary with earnings and market comments. The day of the tragedy was silent; then sent an apology (“We are very sorry for the loss we suffered today”), vague description (“We are not in a normal situation due to the pandemic, war, delay in ECB rate hikes, inflation and investor fear”) and encouraged people to keep going. “There’s no use lamenting what happened, it’s time to learn (…) That’s life, when you fall you have to get up (…) It’s the only path to success and we’ll walk that path, it’s up to you to join us or not.” This message disappeared weeks later as he deleted his main Telegram channel.

Leviathan was among those who followed him, according to rumors, A nickname for two or three people living in Andorra. While screenshots of the profiles are circulating on Instagram (with faces and usernames removed), no one knows exactly who they are or how to contact them, and there are people who claim it’s them. Investors who lost their money include young Hispanics and Latinos. One Spaniard promised to give his name and address to anyone who wanted to call them in exchange for a “symbolic” sum, while the Spaniards resigned – “we can do little or nothing from here”.

How did all these people get here?

Leviathan—or its mysterious members— He wouldn’t be anyone if others didn’t talk about him. Many of those who went to copy it came, describing the various affected people consulted after seeing his videos. Adrian SaenzA content creator with over 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube, 160,000+ on Instagram and 130,000+ on TikTok. What are you working on? Sáenz has saved four years by uploading videos on social networks about ‘dropshipping’ (selling products directly from wholesalers), e-commerce, selling on Amazon, poker, renting on Airbnb, mutual funds, cryptocurrency mining or NFTs. Any method by which you can monetize will likely appear on your channel.

five months ago Adrián surprises viewers with a video where he explains how to make money with the ‘copy business’. This isn’t the only video—YouTube is already full of videos of kids commenting on this investment method—but it’s one of the most viewed videos. Another video was added to the first video showing how much he earned in a week, then in a month, and finally in two months. Coincidentally, the first three were removed from YouTube and only the last one remained public.

Adrián Sáenz, who did not respond to a request for information from EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA, explains in his video how he learned about this business model. “I was at the gym a year ago and a guy came up to me and said: hey, Adrián, I’ve seen some of your YouTube videos and I would like to advise you to start ‘copy business’.As he commented, he saw this as too risky and did not invest, which is something that has radically changed ten months later considering it “a good idea to do it on a video”. On this occasion he placed 3,000 euros on three ‘traders’. , in three systems replicating three experts. A week later he had lost a total of 14 euros. However, one of the three ‘merchants’ made him money: a total of 18 euros. This ‘merchant’ was the famous Leviathan.

With full confidence, Sáenz decided to quadruple his bet and invest 5,000 Euros. Thirty days later it came to fruition, its profit in this system was around 966 euros. By the way, in the first two videos, He has placed an affiliate link where he will receive commissions for anyone who signs up with Roboforex and invests in Leviathan. There is no public trace of this anymore, but this was demonstrated by another YouTuber who revealed Sáenz’s tragic investment, Capelo Trading. Sáenz himself admitted this in the latest video on the subject.

5,000 Euro deposited and 1,000 Euro earned per month, Sáenz doubled his investment in Leviathan to 10,000 euros. 63 days after he started copying the three ‘traders’, Leviathan offered him the best return, a profit of 7,368 euros. This assumes 73.7% return With capital invested in just two months, it’s incomparable to other financial instruments like the stock market or fixed income.

Young ‘youtuber’ found an aquifer in the desert and so let his legion of followers know. Although Sáenz preached the benefits of ‘copy business’ and an ‘expert’ who would be copied via publicity, commission, he added the catchphrase “this is not investment advice” to his videos, which is necessary to avoid liability. “It is true that you need certain skills and abilities to run a financial advisory business. Otherwise, they will not let you register it in the Business Register,” says Juan Carlos Gómez de León, lawyer who deals with cryptocurrency fraud cases. . “But to what extent are these recommendations a financial activity? It is claimed that either the ‘youtuber’ knows that these operations will fail or that it is not fraudulent.“.

Seeing such an incredible comeback and “through his friend from the gym,” Sáenz contacted Leviathan to ask him a series of questions. Among them, what should happen for all the money to disappearThe ‘expert’ replied that this must have happened historically.

a losing strategy

Leviathan’s investment strategy to profit from the euro-dollar exchange rate was: martingale, a well known system in casinos In this case, a double bet is made in case of loss. That is, if you bet on red and black lands, you bet twice and so on. It’s the same in the stock market: if an asset goes up, it’s flipped down, and if it continues to go up, sell orders are initiated.

In the financial markets and casino, this strategy fails when a bad streak is chained and there is no more capital to bet. It is a strategy with a negative mathematical expectation, that is, a losing strategy in the long run., something Adrián realized after five videos uploaded on the ‘copy trade’. What is the positive side? Even if it goes bankrupt at some point, It is unknown when this will happen. As long as you don’t sink, it can be very profitable. This was the case of Leviathan, which achieved over 350% accumulated returns, which is impossible to achieve even with the best mutual funds.

Despite the clouds surrounding the strategy, Leviathan argued that something historic had to happen for them to go bankrupt. It’s a lie, because in the past several drowsiness (exits) was about to go bankrupt. Only between May and June did they accumulate declines that later rebounded from 38%, 61% or 73%.

“This kind of operation has neither a head nor a tail. The euro-dollar currency has fallen since 2021. A good investor knows that the euro has been depreciating against the dollar for over a year,” says analyst IG. “And martingale has gone really wrong for them. Is it a common strategy? They are used because they have no idea about the market. I would try to avoid them. Within ‘trading’, currencies are very volatile and this type of strategy is difficult to do. But there is finally a lot of marketing that improves this situation”.

“They tricked us”

After the big drop in July, two things happened. The first is that small investors keep complaining (“hesitating”) about Telegram and are considering joint action. Second, Leviathan opened a new profile, attracted new investors (around 600) and went bankrupt again and lost all the money weeks later. For his part, Saenz got his money on time and uploaded a video saying he no longer recommends copy trading or martingale strategies. He reported that he had removed his affiliate links and asked his followers what they would do with the €20,000 he had earned. “What do you want me to do with them? Do you want me to try some kind of business or investment? Leave it to me in the comments because I’ll read it,” he said.

The law firm of Jiménez y Lozano contacted those affected and invited them to attend a meeting. Class action claim against Roboforex, platform: He’s not against the mysterious Leviathan, nor the YouTuber who promoted him, collecting his commissions while the operation yielded results. From the office, they assured this newspaper that there were about 400 people interested in making the request, and they agreed to provide more information, but in the end they didn’t. There are affected people who do not trust. “A lawyer’s fundraising feels like a roll”they say in the group.

Lawyer Gómez de León believes that if the claim is presented, it will not be successful and that young investors will not see a euro return. “I don’t see it. If you agree to copy an investment that you don’t know whether it’s good or bad, you’re playing. They cheated on you because you lost money,” he concludes. “But what if things go well, what do you say?”

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