The head of Generation Zoe, Leonardo Cositorto, was arrested this Monday in the Dominican Republic by Interpol agents, for illicit association and fraud, in the case that began in the courts of Villa María, Córdoba, and that adds 17 arrested so far.
However, the Villa María Second Shift prosecutor, Juliana Companys, who is leading the case, said that “there are still fugitives with an international arrest warrant.”
With the arrest of Cositorto, the circle is closed on the main responsible for that organization that, according to the preliminary investigation, attracted investments, in pesos and dollars, with promises to pay high interest monthly payments that greatly exceeded those offered in the formal financial market.
Cositorto, like the other detainees, are charged with the crimes of repeated scams and illicit association for their illicit transactions through the ponzi or pyramid scheme as these operations are known and, according to the prosecutor Companys, involves “millionaire scams and thousands of victims ”.
The judicial official explained to Radio 10 that Cositorto was arrested in an apart hotel in the town of Juan Dolio in the Dominican Republic, through the intervention of Interpol and police personnel from that Caribbean country.
For the arrest “technology has collaborated a lot,” he said, detailing that the now detainee “systematically came out in different media, although he was ‘naked’, that is, he tried not to detect his IP”, the address that identifies the internet device, but “he made some mistakes and we were able to find him.
He also considered that the head of Generación Zoe was mobilizing clandestinely and violating the regulations, arguing that “he entered Colombia legally and apparently illegally in the Dominican Republic”, because “Migrations does not register his entry” in that country.
In this context, he said that for his extradition he is “requesting with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs a principle of collaboration so that the man is transferred to Argentina.”
The lawyer Miguel Angel Pierrirepresentative of Cositorto, was asked by the same station about the transfer to Argentina to answer for the accusationsand in this regard he said that “if Cositorto does not resist extradition, he will be extradited to Argentina, and, as a necessary step, he will be sent to the local Interpol unit, located on Cavia Street”, recalling that The Dominican Republic does not have an extradition agreement with Argentina.
However, the prosecutor Companys, in statements to channel 12 of Córdoba, clarified that Although there is no extradition agreement, “there is a collaboration agreement for cases of fugitives from justice. The Argentine Foreign Ministry is working “on the issue,” he said.
Companys specified that in order to reach the place where Cositorto was, the background images of the transmissions of the videoconferences he held were analyzed.
Once all the legal and diplomatic procedures are completed, Cositorto “will be detained in the Villa María prison or in the City of Córdoba”, and then subjected to the “inquiry as with all other detainees” , anticipated the prosecutor, who specified that the request for release “has already been denied.”
He also stated that “the scam is millionaire in pesos and dollars”, and that “thousands are affected by the maneuvers in Villa María, in the provinces and other countries.”
On March 21, Maximiliano Batista, Cositorto’s deputy, was arrested when he arrived at the Ezeiza International Airport from Paris on an Air France flight.
The procedures began on February 18 last, based on the complaint of savers who did not recover the investment, with raids on different associated entities, in Villa María and Buenos Aires, which, according to what is known from the preliminary investigation, between March and November 2021, 14 commercial companies were created, some of them on the same day.
Among these are Prioli Construcciones, Generación Zoe, Universidad del Trading and Zoe Construcciones, established on March 18, 2021, and with movements of more than US$ 7 million detected so far.
In addition, the investigators verified that, in October 2020, Cositorto canceled a debt that had been classified as “unrecoverable” by the Central Bank where it was listed as “delinquent and uncollectible”, added the sources of the case.
Federal judge Ariel Lijo ordered ten raids last Thursday in a case for alleged money laundering of the Zoe holding company.
One of the operations was in the law firm of former judge Héctor Luis Yrimia, Zoe’s legal adviser, who remains at large and has an international arrest warrant.
The General Inspection of Justice (IGJ) also initiated legal actions against Generación Zoe that are filed in the national courts of First Instance in Commercial Matters Number 14, Secretariat 28; and Number 26, Secretariat 51.
