The second-shift Investigation Prosecutor of the Cordovan city of Villa María, Juliana Companys, stated this Monday that “it is impossible to measure the money” that moved the organization Zoe GenerationDue to the “multiplicity of businesses in Argentina and abroad” through the scams he carried out with the pyramid scheme.
Also, he considered that “it is necessary to toughen the penalties” because -he argued- there is “outdated legislation that is light for economic crimes”, with sentences of two months to six years, and that halfway through the sentence allows the convicted to “Regain your freedom by being millionaires.”
The prosecutor is leading the main case that she began to investigate in February of this year in Villa María based on anonymous complaints, and, from there, the investigation spread to other provinces and abroad, where “satellite companies and businesses” linked to Zoe Generation were located.
Previously, in early Januarythe National Securities Commission (CNV) and the Prosecutor for Economic Crime and Money Laundering (Procelac) had started their own investigations into Generación Zoe by a complaint promoted by the Non-Governmental Organization Bitcoin Argentina, for the alleged crimes of fraud and financial intermediation through the system known as ponzi.
The Zoe Generation cause of Villa María
The Villa María case, classified as “repeated scams and illicit association”, has 29 defendants for different responsibilities, including its top manager, Leonardo Cositorto, Maximiliano Batista and Claudio Álvarez as some of Zoe’s main executives and who, according to the prosecutor, in that Cordovan city “there are more than 1,050 victims and so far there are only 176 victims who denounced” the scams.
Companys specified to Télam that in his investigation he was able to account for US$2 million and $15 millionbut added that he has “knowledge that Zoe had a daily movement of one million dollars and an approximate estimate of US$ 120 million” at the time of the judicial intervention, since there are around 880 victims who did not go to court, “probably because it was about black money.”
In March of this year Savers found themselves with the closed doors of the Generación Zoe offices in Villa María and protests began on the streetsbecause the managers had learned of the impending raids, and then “redirected all the money to trusted family and friends.”
“It is impossible, incalculable, to measure the money, the companies and the businesses that Zoe managed, because in some cases it is impossible for us to obtain information,” particularly on the investments she has abroad, the prosecutor said.
The volume of money that various business units and other types of business alliances needed to place the investments was so great that in 2021 they “created 15 satellite companies, which were not ghosts” and all located in Buenos Aires.
ALC Coaches (Latin American Association of Coaches) as the business unit of Generación Zoe in Villa María was known, and which at the same time sheltered the subsidiary of the World Confederation of Coaches, in both cases led by Cositorto.
They invested a lot of money in advertising to give the security bias and legitimacy to the businessas they had the support of the River Plate Club University Institute and the University of Salamanca (Colombia).
However, an investigation was carried out to verify these data and it was found that “they were all false, these guarantees did not exist.”
How Generation Zoe Operated
The maneuver to raise funds consisted of promoting investments in ontological coaching training for leadership, spiritual and financial coaching, in exchange for the payment of monthly interest that averaged 7.5% which, they said, were guaranteed by Zoe Cash cryptocurrencies, mining operations in Jujuy and San Juan, among other supposed guarantees that “did not exist either,” said the judicial official.
“So far we have not had any presentation indicating that they are willing to return the money to savers”said the prosecutor when asked about that promise that Cositorto had expressed in the media, who was arrested by Interpol on April 4 in the Dominican Republic after being a fugitive for several weeks.
“I have all the elements of evidence to support the accusations about the responsibilities of each one,” said Company, and announced that the main file is “very advanced” and intense work is being done on related causes.
Also, he considered that “it is necessary to toughen the penalties”, because He maintained that there is “outdated legislation that is light for economic crimes.”
In this sense, he said that, due to this flexibility of criminality, “for many, million-dollar fraud is a business because there are legal loopholes, such as those committed with new technologies and virtual money.”
Thus, he concluded that “Scams have sentences of two months to six years and with good behavior, probation after half of the sentence is recovered, which leaves them rich.”
That is why he insisted that “it is necessary to update the legislation that suppresses crimes due to fraud and fraud”, and affirmed that “they are outdated and that allows today in Argentina to be a big business to scam because they are in jail for a short time and they are released enriched”
