Argentinian businessman Leonardo Cositorto, creator and principal figure of the company Generación Zoe, operated different business units in Argentina. They were as varied as “Zoe Burger”, a fast food chain, or “Zoe Cash”, a cryptocurrency that backed its value in gold.
The company began to fall in reputation when an anonymous Twitter user conducted an investigation into the company that caught the attention of the authorities and the Argentine press. As a result, Cositorio is outside Argentina with an international arrest request from Interpol, accused of defrauding thousands of people in Latin America.
Despite their situation, Generation Zoe's subsidiaries continue to move through local “leaders” who have an increasingly active agenda of alleged investments.
The company has been installed in Uruguay for months, reported La Diaria. They even said they have an office in Montevideo, as reported in a WhatsApp group that they use to keep investors aware of new products.
Despite having announced that they had office rent for a whole year, after arriving at least as of December, the closure of it was a couple of weeks later and it was also communicated via the WhatsApp group. The organizers commented there that “they were not comfortable going to the office in this context.”
One of the investors in Uruguay who gave anonymous testimony stated that, although the company made the first payment in February, he knows that it is a pyramid scheme because many in its WhatsApp group have late payments and fears that from March the situation will begin to complicate him.
He commented that in the WhatsApp group where he participates, “investment opportunities” are constantly being promoted, ranging from land in Colombia or in the metaverse to trading robots. The returns they promise are progressive, with the first month being 20%, the second month 25% and so on.
According to the investor, who came in with $9,000, the group that includes it has 99 people, the maximum that the application allows, but he would not be surprised if there were three or four more since people who are not in his group are constantly being referred to.
He says that 80% of the people who are there “lost or are in the process of losing” and there is a figure “about 20% who won”. It clarifies, however, that they won because they involved “the whole family”, because as people enter the system it is charged.
For this reason, in part, it is that a formal complaint has not yet been made, because many still hope to recover the money and that this “has been discussed in the group”. Zoe's team, at the same time, maintains that it works to recover liquidity and make up for late payments.
Although “Zoe Coaching SAS” (used to create the office rental) and “Zoe Plus SAS” do appear as companies incorporated in Uruguay, “Zoe Latam”, “Zoe Coaching”, “Zoe Plus” or any other company name corresponding to the letters “Zoe” or that has domicile in the offices they claimed to have are not registered. This is on the list of investment advisors, portfolio managers and securities intermediaries who are registered in the Registries of the Superintendency of Financial Services of the Central Bank of Uruguay.
This registration is necessary in order to be able to advise on investments to third parties in the country.
The Central Bank of Uruguay itself stated that “the firms and products mentioned are not registered in the records of the Superintendency of Financial Services (SSF) under any license or as products of any registered institution”. And that “when there is suspicion that a natural or legal person is carrying out an activity for which it should have been licensed, the Central Bank acts within its competence”.
KEEP READING: