The lawyer Gustavo Antonio de Jesús Saavedra became the first convicted in the framework of the case that follows Generation Zoe for fraud and illicit association in the Cordoban Courts of Villa María.
In an abbreviated trial, Control Judge Soledad Dottori was in charge of the hearing, which determined a sentence of four years in prison for the defendant and was originally scheduled for last Monday but was postponed to Thursday due to the arrival of new evidence in the file.
"He said he is sorry for the damage he did to the victims," judicial sources told Clarín.
The prosecutor of Instruction of second shift of Villa María, Juliana Companys, and the defense of Saavedra, in charge of the official lawyer Diego Julián, reached an agreement for the abbreviated trial that was homologated by a sentence issued by Judge Dottori.
"The agreement basically focuses on the accused admitting his responsibility and guilt in the facts, and the penalty to be set is pre-agreed," the official defender explained after the hearing.
To be abbreviated, the trial did not last more than half an hour, time in which the prosecutor Companys presented the case in global terms and focused on one of the many scams that are investigated.
In addition to the four years of prison ordered, the judge determined the confiscation of 38 thousand pesos, amount that the lawyer had in his house at the time of arrest, to which was added the kidnapping of a Ford Ka car.
Leonardo Cositorto, the leader of the operation of Generation Zoe.
The Villa María case, labeled as "repeated fraud and illicit association", has 29 accused for different responsibilities. Those with the greatest responsibility are Leonardo Cositorto, Maximiliano Batista and Claudio Álvarez, identified as the main directors of Generación Zoe.
According to the prosecutor, in Villa María "there are more than 1,050 victims (of fraud) and so far there are only 176 victims who reported" these crimes.
Companys timely told the Telam agency that in his investigation he was able to account for scams for US $ 2 million and $ 15 million, but 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 black money."
Hundreds of victims of the scams claim their money. Photo: Rafael Mario Quinteros.
In March of last year the scammed savers found the doors closed to the offices of Generación Zoe de Villa María, at which time the claims began in the streets.
The directors of Generation Zoe -for reasons that are investigated- became aware of the imminent raids, and thenredirected all the money to family and trusted friends, which ended up producing the emptying.
"It is impossible, incalculable, to size the money, companies and businesses that Zoe managed, because in some cases it is impossible for us to obtain information," particularly of the investments she has abroad, the prosecutor said after months of investigation at the end of last year.
According to the investigation, the volume of money that the group needed from several business units and other modalities of commercial alliances to place investments was so much the volume of money that led to the creation in 2021 of "15 satellite companies, which were not ghosts" and all located in Buenos Aires.