While the investigation progresses in San Isidro for alleged fraud against Alejandro Muszak,
CEO of the fintech Wenance arrested this Monday in a case for 1.5 million dollars,
on the other side of the Atlantic the Spanish justice system also has an eye on the financial movements of the company's subsidiaries, where more than two hundred savers claim for a debt ten times greater.
These are two firms that the Wenance conglomerate had in Spain and that, according to the savers,
were used to take money out of the country with the promise of "saving it from the Argentine risk"
and placing it in a safer context to invest.
The firms are Wenance Lending de España SA and Abuntia Services SL
The savings of more than 200 investors based in Spain reached there, who had entrusted their capital to Muszak's firm. There are from small savers who put in the money they could accumulate in their entire lives, to risk investors who were tempted by the returns offered by the firm, close to 12 percent per year in dollars.
All of them are represented by the law firm Kepler-Karst Law Firm, which filed a collective action with a hundred victims in October of last year. That figure has doubled in recent months, reaching a total of 202, which claim 16 million euros.
Specifically, there are three actions: one against Ahuntia (in the Commercial Court No. 4 of Madrid), another against Wenance España (Commercial Court No. 17 of Madrid) and a third of a criminal nature in the National Court, which deals with complex crimes.
The latter goes against Muszak and against Pedro Viggiano
, administrator and legal representative of Ahuntia. They are two of the six detained by the Argentine justice system this last week.
This Friday, at the last minute, Court No. 4 ruled on the opening of bankruptcy proceedings for Ahuntia and took away management of the company to analyze what happened to the money.
The Wenance saga began last year. The company was in charge of offering loans to people outside the banking system, which were mainly used to purchase household appliances or motorcycles. For them, they financed them by taking money from investors.
These investors had several tools to deposit the money, either legally or "undeclared," according to various sources testifying to Clarín. One of them was the firm Créditos al Río SA. Through this company the movement of money abroad was carried out.
According to judicial sources in Spain and Argentina, the operation was as follows. Ahuntia or Wenance España issued debt securities, which were granted to Créditos al Río. This part, for its part, is sold to Argentine investors. With this,
savers obtained a promissory note that had to be paid in Spain.
It was a triangulation to move money abroad.
This tool was used by many
Argentines, between 35 and 45 years old, who were in the process of emigrating from the country
and used it as a way to take their savings abroad. They wired the money for six months, while they filed paperwork or sold properties. Then they got paid in Spain and started again. Many even transferred the money from those sold properties.
"
I have people who have been left on the street because they were waiting for that money to rent a new house in Spain
," they exemplify from Kepler-Karst.
In October, Muszak had told
Clarín
that the savers' complaint was a "forced bankruptcy request" and that they would present a payment plan. Since then, the firm began an aggressive campaign to try to convince investors with a debt restructuring that included a 20-year payment offer, where in the first decade it is paid semiannually until reaching 25%.
According to these investors, they sent them emails up to three times a day and called them by phone to get them to agree to sign a new mutual agreement and refinance the debt.
Last week the hearings were held, where Ahuntia and Wenance España presented their accounting books and the offer they presented to savers to be able to restructure the debt. There a first difference arose, since the proposal they showed to the justice system was different from the one they had made to the savers. And it wasn't the only inconsistency.
"The purpose of the hearing was to know whether the companies are insolvent or not. They stated that they have a restructuring plan,
but what they showed had many formal defects
and in no case was it proven that they were not insolvent" , commented from Kepler-Karst.
The other point that caught their attention is that they took funding "well above" the loans they granted. "The money apparently begins to go towards investments in companies of the same group. Or we see that
there are excessive expenses of the company, we would almost say unjustified
, for amounts similar to the fund of what they were taking," they summarize.
As they noted, the balance sheets had some particular situations. Ahuntia, for example, declared that in 2021 it had "supply" expenses of more than 65 million euros, an item that indicates raw material expenses in the case of industries, but not very precise for a company that carries out loans and financial operations.
Another item highlighted was External Services (11 million euros in 2021) or Advertising and Propaganda (9 million euros in 2021).
Added to this is that the companies would not have presented any type of balance sheet in the Commercial Registry of Madrid (Equivalent to the Argentine General Inspection of Justice), and that those brought to the judicial hearing were neither signed nor audited.
For the Spanish victims, this week's arrests do not significantly change the equation, beyond understanding that it is a guarantee of knowing that the CEO "is not going to escape." They are more attentive to what the commercial justice of Madrid may resolve, which
in the next week should define whether it also opens the bankruptcy for Wenance Spain,
and what steps the bankruptcy administrator defined for Ahuntia takes.
If the criminal action continues, on the other hand, Muszak could at some point be extradited. But more than seeing his face on the other side of the ocean, what interests them is to see where the money is. The unknown that everyone has today.