Afinsa - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Afinsa was the world's third largest collectibles company, after Sotheby's

Sotheby's

Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...

and Christie's

Christie's

Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...

, and with its controlling stake in Escala Group operates in many Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an cities, the USA and Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

. Founded in 1980 by Albertino de Figueiredo, a Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

national living in Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, the group is headquartered in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

and has offices in many other cities, including Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

, Vigo

Vigo

Vigo is a city and municipality in north-west Spain, in Galicia, situated on the ria of the same name on the Atlantic Ocean.-Population:...

, Valladolid

Valladolid

Valladolid is a historic city and municipality in north-central Spain, situated at the confluence of the Pisuerga and Esgueva rivers, and located within three wine-making regions: Ribera del Duero, Rueda and Cigales...

and Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

Fraud allegations

In May 2006, police in Spain made several arrests, closed offices and confiscated material in connection with a massive suspected fraud operation involving two companies Afinsa Bienes Tangibles and Forum Filatélico and affecting the life savings of over 350,000 private investors in Spain. The offices of Afinsa in Madrid were searched by armed police and documents and computers were taken away from the buildings. Of the nine arrests made by police, four people from Afinsa were arrested, including the founder Albertino de Figueiredo, and one of his sons, Carlos Figueiredo Escribá. The company published a note on its website reassuring its clients and employees that it was cooperating with authorities in order to prove its innocence.

The company has been accused of operating a Ponzi fraud scheme

Ponzi scheme

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation...

, using the money from new investors to pay the returns on previous investments. Many of the approximately 150,000 investors are pensioners for whom investing their savings in rare stamps appeared a more attractive option than placing them in a lower-return bank savings account.

Afinsa is not a financial institution, which means that it advises its customers on how to invest their money. As with equity investment, tangible investments are not protected by a mandatory warranty fund under Spanish law (available only to registered financial institutions, which allowed the victims of the earlier Banesto

Banesto

Banesto is a Spanish bank, 88.4% owned by Banco Santander. Currently Banesto is the fifth-largest banking group in Spain, operating around 1,770 branches....

and Gescartera scandals to recover a small part of their assets). Such investment is overseen by the Consumption departments of the regional governments

Autonomous communities of Spain

An autonomous community In other languages of Spain:*Catalan/Valencian .*Galician .*Basque . The second article of the constitution recognizes the rights of "nationalities and regions" to self-government and declares the "indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation".Political power in Spain is...

instead of the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores
Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores
The Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores is the Spanish government agency responsible for regulating the financial securities markets in Spain...

.
Customers of Afinsa affected by the situation have formed several associations, as have customers of Forum.

As the majority owner of NASDAQ

NASDAQ

The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...

traded company Escala Group, the scandal deeply affected Escala's share price, which plummeted more than 85% in the days after the arrests before recovering slightly.

External links

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