The San Cristóbal Cooperative is being targeted because its director, former deputy Juan Carlos Ozorio, would have set up an alleged drug trafficking scheme there.
Carlos Patiño, treasurer of the cooperative, extremely upset and on the defensive, spoke to the press on Wednesday morning. He himself asked not to stir up the partners and call for sanity.
“This cooperative is one of the largest, with the largest membership, and there were never any problems. There is no crisis,” he said.
Although he assured that they have a lot of liquidity, they do not have money in cash at this time to respond to the claim of the partners who are coming to the institution to withdraw their savings due to the scandal generated by the drug ties of its president Juan Carlos Ozorio.
“It is a normal situation, we are doing the social part. This will continue normal. Here everything is normal. We want to transmit to the people, before some audios that are not even authorized by prosecutors or judges. There may be personal but not institutional errors, but I cannot affirm or deny that my leader Ozorio has made mistakes”, he argued.
The treasurer denied that the cooperative is involved in drug money laundering, despite the fact that the president allegedly used the structure for that purpose.
“I think he did a good job, I’m not going to ask him to resign. The cooperative is in good health, here what there is most is money”, said Patiño finally.
It is worth mentioning that Juan Carlos Ozorio, from the Fuerza Republicana movement, is singled out by the Public Ministry for having a direct relationship with the criminal and drug trafficking organization. The parliamentarian would be part of the “Avivamiento” church in the city of Curuguaty, Canindeyú, allegedly used to launder money of illicit origin.
This morning in an ordinary session of the Lower House, his loss of investiture was to be discussed. However, Ozorio resigned due to the “stress” generated by the situation after the leak of the audios.
