The complaints against the employee of the Stockbroker De Baeremaecker y Perera began in October 2021. After the scam maneuversthe prosecutor for Economic and Complex Crimes Gilberto Rodriguez seeks to clarify who was responsible for keeping between US$3 million and US$5 million.
The company accuses the employee and maintains that all the operations were carried out outside, in parallel. Instead, the woman declared that all the maneuvers were known to the company.
Carlos Perera is emphatic when establishing his defense. He gesticulates, speaks loudly and firmly points to a large pile of papers that he has on his desk.
The broker said he met the woman in the year 2000. She had worked at the bank American Express and had retired due to illness. “One day he brought me a portfolio of clients that he had handled at the bank. So we signed a contract. She brought clients and I paid her half of the commissions. But they were clients of hers,” he recalled.
In the stock market world that figure is known as introducing broker. In this way, the woman was mentioned on the business cards of the company (another Perera broker, in times prior to associating with Carlos Baeremaecker).
The employee began to work more specifically in the stockbroker as of 2013, although she had been bringing clients to the company for years. Perera was associated with Baeremaecker in 2019. For this, different audits were carried out and it did not appear no irregularities in company records.
The stock operator said that on October 21 of last year a client showed up at his office and told him that he did not trust the way in which the introducing broker. The issue was not only left in doubt: she asked that all her securities be sent to another stockbroker.
Photo: Leonardo Carreno.
carlos perera
“We sent everything and the other broker called us and told us that many things were missing. The proof was a false document made by the scammer. That document said that this man had more than he actually had,” Perera said.
There an attempt was made to hold a meeting between those responsible for the firm, the woman and the injured client. But the employee no longer appeared. Then, the maneuvers began to be discovered in the company and it was possible to identify that the first scam had been carried out in 2007.
“She worked with a change in the old town that he acted as a bank, something that a change cannot do. That change says that we had an account on it. In a change you don’t have bank accounts, ”he assured. The woman used that exchange house to receive and withdraw money from the clients she handled. “He scammed that way, without us knowing about it and without that money going through the office,” she said.
In De Baeremaecker and Perera they have a list of the withdrawals that the woman made. Only one page shows that the amount was $533,788 and $211,010. Many withdrawals were made on the exchange. And a good part of them have as a comment: “sent in cash to the address”.
“They sent the money to the house in a remise, In a taxi. If I was a client of the change, why didn’t they send it here, we’re two blocks away? Why to her house?” he questioned.
When the maneuvers were exposed, many clients came forward to complain to the stockbroker. “There are people who come here and I don’t even know them,” she said.
Perera commented that the woman in her statement before the Prosecutor’s Office said that she never made accounting movements in the company.
Photo: Leonardo Carreno.
carlos perera
However, in the broker’s computer system there are transfer of funds accounting movements with the user assigned to the employee. Specifically, it includes the transfer of US$ 31 thousand from a relative’s account to her daughter’s.
This movement was made on April 20, 2015, during a time when the company was not open. That same day, the woman’s daughter went to the stockbroker to withdraw the money in cash, something she did through a bank after signing a receipt for the operation in the office.
Perera reported another case. “A man asks me for money when in reality he had already closed his account in the brokerage years ago. He demands US$140 thousand from me. He says that he sent money in 2021 and there is a deposit made in a bank for an account of Durán y Perera (the former stockbroker) in the Republic Bank”, he counted.
“We (because of the current company) were no longer called that and we never, ever had an account at Banco República. It was received in an account that is in my name and that I never had, “she explained.
The Observer was able to verify that the bank account number that appears as Durán and Perera in the bank, actually belongs to the company name of the exchange house.
That was not the only example. She also referred to another woman from Brazil who claims to have sent US$1 million to that exchange house. “Never did a peso come here to the company. He does not have any document issued by us, ”she indicated.
The stockbroker also admits mistakes. “There are clients with whom I committed them. They were mine and they wanted to intervene on a platform that I don’t know and she does. She served them and scammed them. But the client was mine. So I have some responsibility. Not all of it, because I didn’t keep the money. But I accept responsibility because she was a client of mine,” she admitted. Economic agreements are being made with these clients.
This Friday, Perera testified before prosecutor Rodríguez. “There is not a single piece of evidence against me. I am not going to come to complicate life at 69 years old, ”he summed up.
“I trusted this woman because I knew her. Now it looks like she had previous scams. If I had known that, would I have hired her? No,” she maintained.
Seizure
Days ago, De Baeremaecker and Perera, in a relevant event reported to the central bank (BCU) indicated that on Monday, October 31, it was notified of a “traffic generic embargo carried out as a preventive measure against the institution”.
The brokerage recorded that “the funds and securities belonging to the clients of the institution (in whose account and order we act in our capacity as stockbrokers) are not included in the aforementioned embargo, by virtue of which they will not be affected. any, remaining fully available to them for all purposes.
In dialogue with El Observador, Perera considered that this generic embargo is unfair, does not have sufficient evidence and has apocryphal documentation. “The embargo has already been appealed and will have to fall. But it is also generic and does not affect specific accounts”, concluded the stockbroker.
