A 27-year-old man who invested more than €25 million of other people’s money without a licence has been sentenced to more than two years in prison.

Max R. claimed he had been unaware he needed a licence when he took money from more than 160 third parties between 2018 and 2023.

His customers included Mark Nuvelstijn, founder of cryptocurrency platform Bitvavo, who admitted he had given R. €7 million to invest on his behalf.

R. was arrested in April after several banks reported unexplained large payments into his accounts to the financial services regulator AFM.

He admitted to the district court for Overijssel, based in Zwolle, that he had spent some of the investment capital on himself, including purchasing a house for €7.5 million.

He also forged two documents designed to show potential investors that he had large capital reserves.

Judges said his actions had damaged his investors financially and he had covered up the fact that the funds were losing money, while continuing to solicit new investors.

However, they concluded he was not operating a so-called “Ponzi” scheme intended to deprive large numbers of investors of all their capital.

The court imposed a jail sentence of 26 months, 10 months of which was suspended, and banned R., who has declared bankruptcy, from working in financial services.