2023-08-06 07:17:09
Alejandro Muszak, CEO de Wenance
The Investigation Prosecutor Mónica Cuñarro opposed the request made by Alejandro Muszak, the CEO of Fintech Wenance, to suspend his investigation in a case in which he is accused of repeated scams of which low-income people who requested loans in the financial company.
The prosecutor had requested the investigation of Muszak and other members of the company because she verified that loans were granted from there to people who did not qualify to obtain them in the banking system, and charged them significantly higher interest rates than the banks. In addition, in the indictment, it was explained that even after the loans were cancelled, the company continued to debit money from the clients’ accounts, in some cases until the affected funds were exhausted.
At the request of the prosecutor, Judge Alberto Baños set the dates of the investigations for the second week of August. In addition to Muszak, Santiago Hardie, Gustavo Molas and Paola Vallone, members of the company, were summoned. For the prosecutor, they are part of a criminal organization that has committed crimes since at least 2016.
It may also interest you: They cited an inquiry by the directors of the fintech Wenance
The defendants requested the suspension of the investigations because they had made civil pre-trial mediation agreements with several of the complainants of the facts for which they should be investigated. Based on these agreements, they requested that the institute of conciliation or integral reparation of the damage be accepted, which guarantees the extinction of the criminal action after an economic agreement between the victim and the perpetrator.
The prosecutor opposed the suspension of the investigation for several reasons. One of them is that the agreements signed in the mediations are not directly applicable to the criminal case. The parties to the criminal case must appear at an oral hearing in which the terms of the agreement are discussed.
Cuñarro also opposed it because the agreements presented in the cases that are added to the file were made for “derisory” figures that are not related to the amounts for which those who were defrauded were harmed. In addition, the prosecutor described the request for suspension of the investigation as “dilatory.”
Prosecutor Mónica Cuñarro described the request for the suspension of the investigation as “dilatory”.
The companies of the Wenance group, which operate under fancy names such as Presto, Más salario, Mango or Luquitas, attracted people through advertisements and social networks. The loans were generally used to pay debts or rent real estate and were small amounts but with enormous interest. The company granted the loan immediately and with almost no requirements, either in cash or through transfers to client accounts. To collect, they made direct debits from customer accounts, in some cases continuing the debits even after the debt had been paid off.
Among the arguments for which Cuñarro opposed in an opinion that Infobae accessed through judicial sources, the prosecutor pointed out that: “It cannot be ignored that the economic damages resulting from the various maneuvers that this Prosecutor’s Office initially described, consist of having integrated a criminal organization -in which the intervention of other people is not ruled out- with the purpose of deploying different criminal behaviors against property in a systematic and repeated way over time, constituting fraud -even through the unauthorized use of data, even if they did so through an automatic operation, through which they offered and granted personal loans, obtaining a disproportionate pecuniary advantage and injuring the protected legal right. This strikes down any conciliation agreement given the characteristics of the aforementioned facts.”
And he added: “And, it is in the midst of this context, that Muszak intends to be dismissed in this headquarters by signing derisory agreements with some of the private victims of these actions who are in a much more unequal and disadvantageous position to negotiate than investors. harmed. In effect, when analyzing the attributed conducts, it can be clearly observed that they reflect habitual, systematic, organized and complex action on the part of all the defendants that fundamentally affects citizens who, as they declared in their complaints, most of them were excluded from the banking system and therefore resorted to personal loans with Wenance and, in other cases, the victims had not even requested it. And, the number of complaints made throughout the country and that accumulated in this case and others that are still unknown is not a minor fact. In fact, two days ago a judge from Tierra del Fuego ordered a search of Muszak’s house
According to Cuñarro – who does not have the support of specialized units of the Attorney General for the complicated and extensive investigation – Wenance’s scams against those who requested loans are spread throughout the country. And there is also a conflict with those who invested money in the company and complain about the delay in the payments of the promised profits. Muszak recently unveiled a payment plan for investors.
Wenance has a difficult situation with some 3,000 investors for whom it has announced a payment schedule, but it also faces a commercial justice claim initiated by the Dutch fund Latam Consumer that lent Wenance 300 million pesos. In that case, Muszak was issued a million-dollar embargo.
As a result, the prosecutor pointed out that: “Then I wonder how this Public Ministry is intended to endorse and validate the agreements presented when it clearly appears that their only concern is to comply with the commitments assumed with the investors in the midst of the issuance of precautionary measures of millionaire amounts – $450,000,000, (four hundred and fifty million pesos) – to immobilize his assets”.
Cuñarro, when opposing the suspension of the investigation, explained that “Moreover, there is still no certification of the number of cases pending in civil, commercial, criminal, economic, and federal jurisdictions that Wenance SA and those registered here accused against him and, therefore, the number of victims and the specific amount of the economic damage caused are unknown. In other words, it is not an isolated act of fraud, but of fraudulent maneuvers that have public significance and have become commonplace, which break social peace with serious economic damage, since we are faced with the formation and operation of an organization -which under the guise of of a commercial or financial company’- is aimed at the concretion of the multiple abusive and fraudulent corporate maneuvers that mostly affected vulnerable people, retirees, or beneficiaries of universal allowances for children, protected by the National Constitution and international instruments that they oblige us as part of one of the powers of the State”.
Fintech executives are accused of repeated scams
The prosecutor said that: “For example, and I wonder: over time, could new victims arise? The answer is yes, therefore, in this way, accepting each conciliation agreement implies endorsing that the defendants continue with their systematic actions and assume that the crimes committed can be remedied with a number of conciliations, thus distorting the function of the Public Prosecutor’s Office . It is thus, Your Honor, that the society that this Ministry represents cannot be required to make greater efforts to benefit individuals who not only have not understood the minimum standards of social coexistence, legal security and respect for others, but have also made facts in an organized way.
Cuñarro added another argument to support his opposition to the suspension of Muszak’s investigation due to the existence of pre-trial agreements: “Could a criminal organization, for example, conciliate and thus extinguish the criminal action? The answer would clearly be no. It makes legal certainty that people who have money can reconcile while other defendants in minor cases and less institutional gravity cannot because they do not have the financial resources. For this reason, I consider that the extremes invoked constitute a well-founded, detailed and reasonable opposition based on reasons of criminal policy as well as legal certainty”.
And he concluded: “I understand that the reasons invoked by the defense are not only insufficient but dilatory. This, since precisely the investigative statement constitutes the first opportunity to defend a person, voluntary and personal, in order to address the accusations that are directed at him.
For a conciliation agreement in a criminal case to come into effect, it must be approved by a judge and have the consent of the Public Ministry: Cuñarro opposed Muszak’s request. Judge Baños has the floor.
Keep reading
Stornelli appealed a ruling in favor of four officials for the delivery of land from the Army to Mapuches
#Prosecutors #Office #opposed #request #suspend #investigation #CEO #Wenance