Argentine authorities announce Generation Zoe criminal trial
Following almost two years of investigation, the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Villa Maria has announced a Generation Zoe criminal trial.
The trial was announced on Wednesday the 14th, following charges against Generation Zoe founder Leonardo Cositorto and twenty-five additional defendants.
Cositorto was arrested in the Dominican Republic in April 2022, following Generation Zoe’s collapse a few months earlier.
Including Cositorto, twenty-three of the suspects have been arrested.
Rosa Mariz Gonzalez Rincon (right) and Hector Luis Yrimia remain wanted fugitives.
Rincon is a Venezuelan national who presented to be Generation Zoe’s trader. Her status and whereabouts remain unknown.
Yrimia is an Argentine national who fled upon learning of pending Generation Zoe criminal charges.
Yrimia remains in Dubai, shielded by local authorities.
Charges pertain to Generation Zoe being a Ponzi scheme, through which over $120 million was stolen and laundered through.
Public Prosecutors have based their case on 173 incidents of fraud involving 76 victims in Villa Maria. The full scope of the Generation Zoe Ponzi scheme still appears to be unclear.
As reported by Clarin, if convicted, Cositorto and his co-conspirators each face at least twenty years in prison. An exact trial date has yet to be announced.
Separately in Spain, authorities in Alicante have arrested Daniel Paterna and his brother Camilo Paterna Lama.
As reported by Information on February 12th, Paterna and Lama are accused of being Generation Zoe’s ringleaders in Spain. Identified assets were frozen by court order on February 8th.
The case is being handed by Spain’s Special Prosecutor’s Office against Corruption and Organized Crime. Filed charges against Paterna and Lama relate to fraud, participation in organized crime and money laundering.
Paterna and Lama laundered Generation Zoe investor funds to Andorra, the UK, Estonia and Italy. At least one property purchase has been identified.
After Generation Zoe collapsed, Daniel Paterna purportedly told his victims he “didn’t have a cent to cover anything”.
If convicted, the Paterna and Lama are facing nine to twenty-one years in prison.
Meanwhile in Florida:
ibb.co/gW4gwVV
Generation Zoe: Cositorto’s defense opposes the elevation to trial and would sue the prosecutor
This does not sound like a good defense tactic, but what do I know?
Source: lavoz.com.ar/politica/la-defensa-de-cositorto-se-opone-a-la-elevacion-a-juicio-y-denunciaria-a-la-fiscal/
I get a JS error on that link.
Anyway, what are they complaining about now? That the Prosecutor publicly announced the criminal charges but hasn’t filed with the court yet?
Surely Cositorto is going to run out of straws to grasp at some point?
How is this all possible in Latham when OneCoin is still a thing?
@Oz: I had no issues reading the article, but you can found the archived version here:
archive.is/C8DWE
Guillermo Dragotto, lawyer for the leader of Generación Zoe, said that prosecutor Companys failed to comply with her duties as a public official for not reporting to the Federal Justice an alleged crime of money laundering.
But this part is particularly interesting:
So, according to Dragotto, if there was Money laundering in Villa Maria, then why is it not included in the case?
PS: It is worth mentioning that the federal case is in Justice Ariel Lijo’s office whom to date has not done anything(besides raiding the location of a former Zoe office, more than 18 months after its collapse) and the file keeps gathering dust in Buenos Aires despite the constant growing number (Already in the hundreds) of individual complaints.
Last but not least, two days ago Cositorto said that he was sad because his reputation has being destroyed despite his efforts (citing transfering 29 million dollars to Argentina) to avoid Zoe’s end.
Which is funny, because that’s what both John Benjumea and James Spencer declared in the Colombian investigation.
@Stevie:
Most of OneCoin scammers jumped ship long ago. And now they have reinvented themselves as “traders”, “coaches” or “mentors for new tycoons”.
It is funny that in more than one of many Cositorto interviews (and even in Court!!) he claimed that Generacion Zoe’s profit promises (7.5% monthly return) is achievable because OmegaPro was offering and paying 10%
Breaking News!!!
Cositorto vs Yrimia the final battle.
Next Thursday, the founder of Zoe (in jail) and the “legal advisor”(from scammers’ paradise) will be facing each other in an special from Radio El Mundo.
Since when do you need to prove who spent laundered funds to prove money laundering anyway?
The Generation Zoe stolen funds are sitting in crypto wallets under the control of Cositorto and associates. Sentence Cositorto, slap restitution in the amount they can prove was stolen through Generation Zoe and Cositorto stays in prison till assets are recovered.
I know that’s probably what they’re doing but makes you wonder why Cositorto’s attorney is putting out dumbass statements in the meantime.
Cositorto has chosen high profile – media obsessed (“star”) attorneys. I still do not understand what is “the strategy” other than proving that both Dragotto and Pierri are clowns.
Speaking of clowns, Cositorto keeps saying on air many, many things that repeated in court would be treated as a confession of unlawful deeds (I sent several millions to Argentina… Yrimia has friends in the police… Rosa Gonzalez is being protected by Yrimia’s people… Echegaray stole my money…).
Besides, even if Juliana Companys is guilty (she is not) Cositorto still has other arrest warrants (Salta, and Corrientes) so no legal strategy (or trick for that matter) would free him (as Cositorto keeps asking for house arrest “in order to pay investors I need to work…”.
He fled Argentina, illegally entered a third nation, he’s obviously at flight risk).
The problem with that approach is, outside of a dwindling circle of net-winners, Cositorto isn’t a star.
Average Argentinian reading about some schmuck who stole millions of dollars through a Ponzi scheme isn’t going to blink twice.
Oz, it’s worse than that: those attorneys believe themselves to be stars!!!
Of course, it is not as simple as that. Pierri is “famous” because in the past he was confronted by his 7-8 year old son during an interview. He is always after high profile cases.
youtube.com/watch?v=Rlzsp7O7RRE
Unfortunately no subtitled version, but it went something like this:
– Pierri: Mangeri* is an innocent man…
– Pierri’s son: Dude, he killed Angeles!!!!
* Mangeri was a janitor later convicted after murdering a 16 yo girl:
perfil.com/noticias/policia/a-una-decada-del-femicidio-de-angeles-rawson-10-claves-para-entender-el-crimen.phtml
Yrimia tells it all!
Being accused of trying to steal felt like a kick in the nuts
In a long conversation with Diario Clarin, the former Justice Luis Yrimia claims that he:
– is another victim of Cositorto’s scams ($85k).
– confirms that he presented himself to Dubai authorities.
– blames Justice Companys of many “legal irregularities”
– reiterates he never was Zoe’s legal advisor.
– denies being the person who suggested the Gold mines as part of the Zoe coin scheme (but never names the actual culprit because “was someone close to my heart, I felt betrayed” Fredo?(?))
– claims the Cositorto’s recent declarations blaming him of “stealing the investor’s money” is just part of an ill planned legal strategy in order to make Cositorto look less responsible of the illicit.
– lives in Dubai with the product of his effort, and with “money from international grants…”
Source: (Paywalled) clarin.com/policiales/dubai-ex-juez-luis-yrimia-defiende-acusaciones-causa-generacion-zoe-digan-quise-afanar-patada-huevos_0_rh7kTuJYiJ.html
Yriminia could easily jump on a plane to Argentina and tell authorities all of this (after his arrest).
Can’t really take anything he says seriously while he’s a fugitive.
Well, yesterday was the second anniversary of Cositorto’s arrest in a Dominican Republic high end apartment. And he made an announcement: another hunger strike.
Allow us to remember that previous attempts had a rather short duration, a period of time known as a night 😀
Netflix’s Illusions for sale comes this month
Cositorto’s Generación Zoe movie looks nice:
youtube.com/watch?v=rHofSqiogxo
Bendiciones líderes!
(May you receive blessings, leaders!!)