April 24, 2023, 10:32 PM
April 24, 2023, 10:32 PM
The former manager of the defunct San Gabriel Cooperative, Mariano Ovidio Toledo Barba, 61, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the Palmasola prison, after a judicial process that lasted more than eight years and in which there are more 300 partners affected.
It was the 4th Sentencing Court of the Santa Cruz capital that issued the sentence this Monday against Toledo, who was found guilty for the crimes of aggravated fraud and financial intermediation without authorization, during the oral trial hearing.
“The complaint was presented by at least 300 members of the cooperative, before which the Public Ministry collected different elements of conviction such as victim statements, account statementsboth of the partners and of the person being investigated, among other elements that were assessed by the judicial authority that sentenced the defendant,” said Róger Mariaca, Santa Cruz departmental prosecutor.
According to the facts, during the 2013 administration, the former manager took advantage of his position within the extinct San Gabriel cooperative to ask members to deposit different amounts of money with the promise to give them an annual interest of 12%, however, when the term expired, they were not paid anything nor was the capital returned.
Following the claims, the Financial System Supervision Authority (ASFI) issued a report that revealed that the financial institution had no liquidity since the 2009 management and that the partners had been cheated.
The formal complaint was filed by the more than 300 victims on March 9, 2015 at the offices of the Special Force to Fight Crime (Felcc), but the former manager fled and it was not until August 15, 2022 that he was apprehended and made available to the Public Ministry for respective investigation.
For this case, the extinct Cooperative San Gabriel lost two buildings for unfulfilled commitments with two state entities. The victims continue to make the pilgrimage in search of recovering their savings, since they assure that they have not returned even half of their capital.
