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Luc Schiltz

Crypto4Winners: Wallet of detained Luc Schiltz still making transactions from custody

BitYields

• 13 min read
Luxembourg prosecution announced arrest of Luc Schiltz in March 2024, but blockchain data reveals his wallet is still active in moving funds to Binance and ByBit.
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It's been painful five months for more than 4000 investors[1] since the Luxembourg[4]-based cryptocurrency asset investment platform Crypto4Winners abruptly announced that all withdrawals are halted[3].

Shortly after that it was discovered in the public traffic accident registers of the small European country that early in the morning of 4th of March 2024 an Audi car has crashed early in the morning (around 05:00) on the A13 road near the town of Dudelange[1]. However, what is shocking - according to the traffic accident report - besides the driver being a cryptocurrency multimillionaire, the tall baldish man literally tried to "confusedly jump" in front of another passing bus, which barely managed to avoid collision with the crash victim. Was this an attempt of a suicide?

Meet Luc Schiltz, manager of a $150 million crypto fund and a Eurpol "Most wanted" fugitive

Image 1: Luc Schiltz posing in front of a helicopter perhaps somewhere in the Alps[1].

Describing the victim of the unfortunate car crash it not an easy task. Before founding Crypto4Winners, Luc Schiltz (NOTE: Not to be confused with the famous Luxembourgish actor and director with the same name[9], who stars in the Netflix TV series "Capitani"[10]) was known in Luxembourg as an innovative IT entrepreneur, who has launched one of the country's first web hosting companies[1] during the DotCom boom in 2000[6]. "He was making a lot of money and he was very innovative, but he didn't keep track of the checks and balances and ended up wasting the business." comments one of the people who knew Mr. Schiltz around the time[1].

Years after that around 2009 Luc Schiltz has engaged in an elaborate investment scheme scam where he would offer extraordinary returns to investors by promising to invest the capital into innovative solar and agricultural projects in South America and California, with completely imaginary people vouching for the project, including the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho[8]. Mr. Schiltz would create multiple companies in Luxembourg and United Kingdom and would eventually make it to the infamous "Most Wanted" list of Europol briefly for a week, before eventually self-surrender peacefully to the authorities in July 2017[10]. During the trial the court-appointed psychologist would describe him in the dossier report as "narcissist", "intelligent", "cold" and "without any empathy towards his victims", with the remark "the possibility of recidivism is very high"[1]. Eventually Mr. Schiltz was sentenced to 6 years in prison, but spent behind bars only 2, with having completely repaid the 2.5 million of EUR which he has cost in damage to his victims[1][2].

Crypto4Winners: Born 2019 in Luxembourg, engineered in Pakistan, "empowered" by Ledger across France

Image 2: Adrien Castellani (top-left) and Luc Schiltz (bottom-right) conducting a video conference call with two unidentified persons via Google Meets[1].

Shortly after his release from jail Mr. Schiltz wastes little time in starting his next financial enterprise, however this time in the domain of cryptocurrency. He contacts the Pakistani-based obscure software development firm TechInsects which between January 2020 and June 2021[12] writes the PHP code for the Crypto4Winners.com platform[11], together with the blockchain backend[1].

Image 3: Crypto4Winners support article which assured users that the funds were protected by Ledger's technology and insurance[40].

However, Schiltz makes a brilliant strategic move by negotiating with Ledger to incorporate a personalized version of the Ledger Enterprise software system[39] for the wallet management operations of Crypto4Winners, thus establishing a solid sense of security[18] for the platform. Particularly, investors were assured no more than 50% of the capital was ever exposed to risk and thanks to the usage of Ledger Vault[40] up to $100 million of funds were insured against hacking/theft attempts.

2020: Adrien Castellani becomes a figurehead CEO, but Luc Schiltz is in charge of actual operations

Around 2020, through a third party, Luc Schiltz also introduces the French citizen Adrien Castellani to join Crypto4Winners as a CEO, thus remaining seemingly uninvolved himself.

In March 2022, during a recorded online conference call when platform investors, when asked about rumors of Schiltz's involved Adrien Castellani openly lied to the community by stating "Schiltz is only an outside trading advisor, without active involvement in day-to-day operations", however he confirmed that legally he still has a stake in the business, but assured everyone that "he is looking into buying out his shares" so all the speculation ends[1][30].

Video 1: Adrien Castellani attending a video conference call with investors of Crypto4Winners where he answers questions about the platform in March 2022[30].

2022 Christmas crisis: Anonymous document claims Luc Schiltz controls C4W

In December 2022 an anonymous document, supposedly created by an ex-employee of the firm, exposed the fact that Luc Schiltz was indeed the beneficial owner of Crypto4Winners via a complex corporate chain of firms in Luxembourg, Ireland, Sweden and United Arab Emirates[14]. Following this a panic ensued, with at least 5 million USD of assets were withdrawn from the platform. Yet, since all these  withdrawals were honored, this even actually served as a reassurance to the perceived "stability" of the platform (or at least for the next year)[1].

📃 Document: December 2022 Insider report about Crypto4Winners (French)[14]

Corporate structure: Tax optimizations via brands, construction workers, and offshore companies in Dubai

Juridically, Crypto4Winners is registered on 16.09.2020 in Luxembourg[36] as a "brand" of the Irish Foreign Limited Company Big Wave Software Technologies Ltd. (est. 29.04.2019[36]) perhaps for tax optimization purposes (NOTE: Luxembourg has a corporate tax rate of 24.94%, while standard corporate tax rate in Ireland is 12.50% for trading profits. There is a possibility for the Irish company to invoice the Luxembourg entity for brand usage costs, thus saving 12.44% in tax expenditures[1]).

However, since Luc cannot directly engage in business due to his parole restrictions, instead he convinces his friend Agostino Ruggiero[13] (NOTE: Who works as a construction worker and is not qualified to run an asset management business[1]) to become the legal owner of the business[14].

Consequently, the actual firm, which legally is allowed to manage crypto assets, namely C4Wave Capital Kommanditbolag[37] is registered in Sweden, initially 100% owned by Schiltz, joined by Castellani in September 2021. The company has repeatedly refused to file financial statements, citing a legal loophole for not doing so[1].

Shortly after that Luc Schiltz registers Optimus Holding Limited in Dubai in May 2021, while Castellani registers 2theMOON S.à r.l. and C4W Management S.à r.l. in July 2021, and Dreamoon Limited in Dubai in September 2021 (NOTE: Coincidentally a company named Dreamoon Limited is also registered in Hong Kong in May 2022[38].). Additionally in February 2022, Adrien Castellani also registers Colossos SA, which intends to provide crypto and banking services[1][36].

Ledger infused trust in Crypto4Winners by marketing it as a partner in asset manager case study

Image 4: Crypto4Winners announcing in their Telegram channel the publication of their official Ledger Asset Manager case study in June 2022[19].

Ledger is a French company and is the largest manufacturer of cryptocurrency hardware wallets and banking-grade security solutions[20]. Its name arguably has been established in the crypto jargon as a synonym for a "secure wallet".

Perhaps Crypto4Winners wouldn't achieve such reputable recognition[19] as an "asset manager" if it wasn't for Ledger's prestigious Asset managers case study page ("How Ledger Enterprise Empowers Crypto4Winners to Succeed in Web3")[17][18] which was featuring solely Crypto4Winners since 23 June 2022 up until 9 March 2024[1] (NOTE: The company abruptly deleted the page in March 2024 in an attempt to hide evidence of their promotion of Crypto4Winners [1]. Yet archived version of the page is still available as proof[18].).

Image 5: Ledger's official Asset Manager promotional page about Crypto4Winners where they explain their partnership, together with a link to a 10-page case study document about the platform[1][17][18].

Additionally, a comprehensive PDF case study report of 10 pages[17][18] also explained in great details to all potential customers about "Maximum security", "Flawless governance" with a bombastic assurance that "The partnership with Ledger Enterprise ensures C4W’s clients the peace of mind that their assets are stored in a tamper-proof ecosystem backed by state-of-the-art insurance with coverage up to $150 million.".

Particularly, Ledger assured all potential customers that "Ledger Enterprise also assists the C4W’s team in aspects, including compliance, audit, and review by internal and external stakeholders." (NOTE: Yes, this is not a paraphrased quote, but a verbatim statement from the very case study itself[1].). In this document the word "partnership" is listed 5 times and with even an entire section named "Long-term Partnership" being present, together with explanations how Ledger built a highly personalized solution for Crypto4Winners[1].

Image 6: Ledger's official 10-page case study document about Crypto4Winners[15].

📃 Document: Ledger Enterprise Asset Manager case study about Crypto4Winners[15]

Finally, these assurances of security, compliance and auditing assistance were promoted to wealthy investors and business people across the professional network LinkedIn as well[16]:

Image 7: Ledger's LinkedIn promotional post endorsing Crypto4Winners[16].

All these publications and reports have been widely influential in the decision-taking process of the investors in Crypto4Winners who used the Ledger's case study report as the prime reason for establishing trust in the platform's operations and management[1], with multiple sources on the Internet reposting this claim too[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29].

Ultimately, since Ledger is one of the best recognized technology brands in France[41], in the end the majority of the investors in the Crypto4Winners platforms turned out to be unsuspecting French nationals[1] who trusted the legitimacy of an investment platform officially endorsed by the market leader in the production of hardware wallets for crypto[1][41].

Luc Schiltz is arrested, but his wallet is still making transactions

BitYields was the first to correctly identify and publish all public wallets of Crypto4Winners for public auditing[1].

Following his car crash in March 2024, BitYields observed almost no movements on all known wallets of Mr. Schiltz (with one exception on March 15[1]) and since March 18th he was placed in permanent custody.

Yet, shockingly between 13-16 July 2024 the very wallet of Luc Schiltz with ENS name "cryptoluxguy.eth" (ERC-20 address: 0xaFF9EAFc5465Ad655a8f23fC26AC40A73A06b2A3) has suddenly become active again, transferring nearly 10 000 USD worth of crypto to personal deposit addresses in the crypto exchanges Binance and ByBit:

Image 8: The last transactions of one of the many personal wallets of Luc Schiltz (0xaFF9EAFc5465Ad655a8f23fC26AC40A73A06b2A3), which shows crypto tokens worth ~10 000 USD being transferred to Binance and ByBit while supposedly he is still detained[1].
Image 9: Two additional wallets which were identified to belong to Luc Schiltz in the past also recorded transaction activity with small sums[1].

Two additional addresses identified to belong to Luc Schiltz have already been reactivated, swapping small sums via MetaMask and moving funds to cryptoluxguy.eth:

The first transaction has been executed during the weekend (13th of July 2024, Saturday) which excludes the possibility of these transactions to have been conducted in the presence of law enforcement officials.

The only possible interpretations are that either Luc Schiltz has access to his cryptocurrency wallets in custody, that he has been released, or a third party now operates with his credentials.

The culpability of the Luxembourg government

This is not the first time when the government of Luxembourg has failed to apprehend Luc Schiltz from doing harm. From our findings on the blockchain it is evident that despite - supposedly - being in custody, Luc Schiltz (or someone he has entrusted) still has active access to this crypto wallet and is able to execute transactions. But even worse, this means that there is real risk for the little remaining customer funds of Crypto4Winners to be transferred to a new location too.

This means that the government of Luxembourg might be held accountable too for further damages caused to the struggling investors of Crypto4Winners, who are trying to trace and preserve the little left funds from the platform[1].

Mr. Andreas Komninos from LR Avocats represents victims of the Crypto4Winners platform

Image 9: Lawyer Andreas Komninos from Luxembourgish law firm LR Avocats[33].

Lawyer Andreas Komninos from Luxembourgish law firm LR Avocats[33] is currently the representative of the largest international group of investors in Crypto4Winners. He currently represents the interest of more than 200 clients in the criminal case against Crypto4Winners which has been initiated by the Luxembourg state[34], together with potential parallel civil settlement cases against other parties as well[1]. Customers of the Crypto4Winners platform can reach Mr. Komninos via his case contact form or email[1].

Mr. Luc Schiltz has reportedly hired criminal defense lawyer Brian Hellinckx[35] from Penning-Schiltz-Wurth as his legal counsel[2], but there are some reports that he might hav been replaced[1].

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References

  1. Original research of BitYields.
  2. DLNews, Car crash amnesia, ‘fraudulent acts,’ and $100m on the line: Crypto4Winners customers want their money back, , https://www.dlnews.com/articles/people-culture/crypto4winners-castellani-schiltz-under-investigation
  3. Reddit, Withdrawal not complete, 08.03.2024: https://www.reddit.com/r/crypto4winners/comments/1b9mp2x/withdrawal_not_complete
  4. Crypto4Winners: https://www.crypto4winners.com
  5. Wikipedia, Luxembourg, 10.08.2024: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxembourg
  6. Wikipedia, Dot-com bubble, 10.08.2024: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble
  7. Land.lu, You’re just too good, 19.01.2024: https://www.land.lu/page/article/240/341240/DEU/index.html
  8. Wikipedia, Paulo Coelho, 10.08.2024: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho
  9. Wikipedia, Luc Schiltz, 10.08.2024: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc_Schiltz
  10. L'essentiel, Diesen Luxemburger jagt jetzt ganz Europa,  14.07.2017: https://www.lessentiel.lu/de/story/diesen-luxemburger-jagt-jetzt-ganz-europa-977804224813
  11. LinkedIn, TechInsects, 10.08.2024: https://pk.linkedin.com/company/techinsects
  12. Crypto4Victims, Where was the Crypto4Winners.com website developed?, 10.08.2024: https://crypto4victims.com/en/blogs/guide-crypto4winners-com/where-was-the-crypto4winners-com-website-developed
  13. LinkedIn, Agostino Ruggiero, 10.08.2024: https://ie.linkedin.com/in/agostino-ruggiero-75b1a81b9
  14. Crypto4Winners anonymous French report, December 2024: https://bityields.s3.eu-central-2.amazonaws.com/21_c4w/c4w_french-report_december-2022.pdf
  15. Ledger, Case study: Crypto4Winners, 10.08.2024: https://bityields.s3.eu-central-2.amazonaws.com/21_c4w/Crypto4winners.com_Ledger_official_support.pdf
  16. Linkedin, Discover how Ledger Enterprise Empowers Asset Managers like Crypto4Winners to Succeed in Web3, 10.08.2024: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ledger-vault_case-study-asset-managers-c4w-activity-6947096307811414016-f0bZ
  17. Ledger, How Ledger Enterprise Empowers Crypto4Winners to Succeed in Web3, 10.08.2024: https://connect.ledger.com/casestudy-assetmanagers-c4w, https://6014057.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6014057/Case Study/Crypto 4 winners.pdf
  18. Internet Archive, How Ledger Enterprise Empowers Crypto4Winners to Succeed in Web3, 23.06.2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20230610114407/https://connect.ledger.com/casestudy-assetmanagers-c4w
  19. Telegram, @C4W_Official, 23.06.2022: https://t.me/C4W_Official/17
  20. Ledger, 10.08.2024: https://www.ledger.com
  21. Bitcoin.com News, Crypto4Winners Looks to Offer a Unique Trading Platform With a Wide Range of Useful Features, 12.05.2024: https://news.bitcoin.com/crypto4winners-looks-to-offer-a-unique-trading-platform-with-a-wide-range-of-useful-features
  22. Investing.com, Why Crypto Asset Management Solutions Are on The Rise?, 03.08.2024: https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/why-crypto-asset-management-solutions-are-on-the-rise-2779339
  23. ManiaBook, CRYPTO4WINNERS, 17.03.2022: https://maniabook.argentmania.com/business/cryptomonnaies/crypto4winners
  24. Reddit, Ledger vault and the case study from ledger for C4W, 19.08.2023: https://www.reddit.com/r/crypto4winners/comments/15v1k4d/ledger_vault_and_the_case_study_from_ledger_for
  25. Reddit, My Original and Updated Research of Crypto4Winners, and other updates. Sorry, it gets long., 11.09.2022: https://www.reddit.com/r/crypto4winners/comments/xb49ae/my_original_and_updated_research_of
  26. AccessWire, Crypto4Winners Looks to Offer a Unique Trading Platform with a Wide Range of Useful Features, 12.03.2022: https://www.accesswire.com/692532/crypto4winners-looks-to-offer-a-unique-trading-platform-with-a-wide-range-of-useful-features
  27. Reddit, Ledger Enterprise, 10.03.2024: https://www.reddit.com/r/crypto4winners/comments/1baz1oh/ledger_enterprise
  28. Reddit, Interesting answers from C4W support + new questions collection (to be forwarded to C4W support), 29.08.2022: https://www.reddit.com/r/crypto4winners/comments/x0j90e/interesting_answers_from_c4w_support_new
  29. Reddit, Crypto 4 winner ledger partner article, 24.06.2022: https://www.reddit.com/r/crypto4winners/comments/vk0p92/crypto_4_winner_ledger_partner_article
  30. YouTube, Crypto4Winners: Private investor call with CEO Adrien Castellani (March 2022), 02.03.2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV-yQQT0ccE
  31. BEP20 chain, Binance wallet, 16.08.2024: https://bscscan.com/address/0x70955C3179b6eB5D5B90583Ddeca9e7DB1B8458E
  32. Polygon chain, ByBit wallet, 16.08.2024: https://polygonscan.com/address/0x1d6A0d33cEa0D258c0A2D209374dA94394101E18
  33. LR Avocats, 10.08.2024: https://www.lravocats.com
  34. The Luxembourg Government, Ministry of Justice, 14.03.2024: https://justice.public.lu/fr/actualites/2024/03/communique-parquet-crypto4winners.html
  35. Penning-Schiltz-Wurth, Brian Hellinckx, 10.08.2024 https://www.psw-avocats.lu/avocats/fiche/brian-hellinckx
  36. Crypto4Victims, Crypto4Winners case, 11.08.2024: https://crypto4victims.com/en/pages/crypto4winners-case
  37. Bolagsfakta, C4Wave Capital Kommanditbolag, 11.08.2024: https://www.bolagsfakta.se/9697954494-C4Wave_Capital_Kommanditbolag
  38. Hong Kong business register, Dreamoon Limited, 09.05.2022: https://www.cr.gov.hk/docs/wrpt/RNC063_2022.05.09-2022.05.15.pdf
  39. Ledger, Ledger Enterprise, 11.08.2024: https://enterprise.ledger.com
  40. Crypto4Winners, Ledger Vault, 02.12.2024: https://help.crypto4winners.com/en/articles/6345228-ledger-vault, Archived:  https://web.archive.org/web/20221202004040/https://help.crypto4winners.com/en/articles/6345228-ledger-vault
  41. Forbes, Hardware Bitcoin And Crypto Wallet Manufacturer Ledger Completes $380 Million Fundraising Round, 10.06.2021: https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilymason/2021/06/10/hardware-bitcoin-and-crypto-wallet-manufacturer-ledger-completes-380-million-fundraising-round

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