Gustavo Laurnagaray
02/13/2021 6:01 AM
Clarín.com
Police
Updated 02/13/2021 6:01 AM
An office with touches of modernity, three successful companies and the good reputation of his father were the pillars on which
Carlos Javier Hecker (40) set
the strategy to execute the largest scam in La Pampa.
So far, the count goes by almost 4 million dollars, but the number could grow without all the harmed ones appeared in Justice.
The scandal erupted in April 2020, when there were barely 30 days of strict quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Hecker, who studied Economics at the UBA, did not act alone.
He had an accomplice:
Yolanda Isabel Martín
, his 75-year-old mother, a teacher who retired as the principal of the primary school in Quemú Quemú, a town of 4,000 inhabitants of eastern Pampas.
It is located 130 kilometers north of Santa Rosa.
It is a town on the banks of the humid pampas, surrounded by fields that overflow with soybeans and cost thousands of dollars per hectare.
At the entrance there is a sculpture, something strange: it is the monument of JF Kennedy, a 42-meter mass of concrete.
His message of Americanist freedom and his death prompted the Quemuense writer Fernando de María (received in letters at Harvard, like Kennedy) for that tribute, inaugurated in 1967.
In August 2012, Hecker registered three companies: Dos Banderas (a plastic tank factory), Tropical SA (a pool factory, based in Trenque Lauquen, Buenos Aires) and Pampa Tech (a security company, dedicated to installing cameras, software and surveillance systems).
A few years later, he created the figure of a financier, HyC Finance, which had the commercial name of Prêmo Efectivo, with branches in Santa Rosa, General Pico and other towns in La Pampa.
The finance company started operating about seven years ago.
"It had a modern building, with stones and glass. It gave a feeling of modernity and was the face of the three companies, in addition to the financial one.
It gave the idea of an economic group,"
said a judicial source.
Cristian's father, Luis Hecker.
was a recognized rural contractor, who started the financial activity.
"The father had prestige and a good reputation," said that judicial source.
First the rumor spread, then the subject reached the newspapers.
They all wanted to get paid and turned to the financial company of Quemú Quemú.
The prosecutor of General Pico Armando Agüero received a complaint in early April.
Three weeks later, on April 21, he raided Moreno 267's office, where Hecker's finance company and companies operated.
Those first complaints were 15 and for 7,500,000 pesos and 225 thousand dollars.
Hecker explained - the day the rumor of his bankruptcy reached the local media - the reason for his debacle.
"Everything was coming along the normal lanes, but there was a succession of events that led me to this," he said, explaining that he had a bond reserve that collapsed.
"And from one day to the next the billing for the quarantine fell to zero," he argued to the newspaper La Arena.
He made his assets and the income of his companies available to creditors.
"They are goods that come from my grandparents' generation," he said.
"I have the complete and primary intention to meet everyone," he promised.
The victims were added in the following months: now there are 158 complainants for 231 maneuvers.
Hecker was left with house arrest, at home with access to the office where the documentation was.
By May 7 there was another raid.
Hecker already had an ordinary prison.
Agüero's investigation established that the scam reaches
2,200,000 dollars and 220 million pesos.
"Those are the maneuvers between January and April that the investigation and the expertise of the Justice reached," the prosecutor explained.
"There are about 450 people affected, out of a total of 761 operations that the accounting expertise found. But not all of them showed up," he explained.
But of all those, there were only 158 complainants, who make up the prosecution.
Agüero believes that part of the money is in the companies.
And that the "debt" was inflated by the interest it offered (up to 300% of the banking market), when they began to ask for the money.
"The day after the raid I asked that he be arrested," Agüero said.
It is that Hecker, in only 2019, had registered six departures from the country to Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
The other side of the maneuver is Yolanda, Cristian's mother.
He is 75 years old and was in the companies.
He signed the checks drawn on the contracts and I will pay them
- which appeared on the finance company letterhead - which they gave in exchange for the money deposited to them.
The lady comes from a family of many hectares.
It has two fields in the area of Miguel Cané, near Quemú Quemú.
In any case, her fame in the town was due to her vocation: she retired as the director of School No. 193 "Juan José Passo".
In the case there are two open preventive contests, one by Cristian Hecker and the other by Yolanda Martín.
The companies continued operating and the financial one was closed.
Attorneys Pamela Molinari and Mercedes Bonetto represent a hundred victims.
"There are people from all over the place, from Quemú, Cané, Colonia Barón, Catriló, Mauricio Mayer, Winifreda, Santa Rosa and Pico. Also people from Buenos Aires," they explained.
Among the depositors there are even sports institutions.
The other judicial front is the contests, where the complainants want to collect part of what they put up.
The scam reached all sectors.
"There is a fixed term of 20 dollars, of a domestic employee. And
someone who sold a field and put 350 thousand dollars"
, said a judicial source.
During this week there was an agreement between the Agüero prosecutor's office, the plaintiffs (among them those represented by Molinari and Bonetto) and the defense of Hecker and his mother.
An abbreviated trial agreement was filed.
They recognized the crime and in return Hecker will go to prison for 3 and a half years, while his mother will serve 3 years of house arrest.
Judge Federico Pellegrino will dictate sentence on February 25, will say if he accepts the agreement of all parties.
In the first days of March the verification of debts will be closed and there the offer of the financier will be known to return the more than 2,200,000 dollars and 220 million pesos that, at least, the Justice verified that they owe.
GL