Some 20,000 inhabitants of the Buenos Aires town of San Pedro are on alert for an alleged pyramid scam – with a system similar to the one devised by Leonardo Cositorto with Generación Zoe – of which they would have been victims. The whistleblowers claim to have invested their savings in a cryptocurrency called “Rainbowex”, which promises a return in dollars, and now fear that their money will not only not grow, but will never be recovered.
The deception would be carried out through Knight Consortium, a foundation made up of a group of shareholders that supposedly operates in the stock market and attracts retail investors around the world. However, the firm is not registered and they do not have any legal endorsement, not even legal support.
In dialogue with a radio outlet, the mayor of San Pedro, Cecilio Salazar, stated that although it is not known “for certain the number of people” who fell into this scam, “it is estimated that 20 thousand people are involved,” from a total of “70 thousand inhabitants.” And he added: “This is not new, it has been happening for more than a year in the city. Obviously, before on a much smaller scale. In the last 5 or 6 months it has been increasing, it is an impressive thing.”
How does the alleged scam work?
According to the participants of this supposed foundation, this “trading” system consisted of users buying their crypto, which in theory pays between 1% and 2% daily, an increase well above what the banks offer. As it is a performance that no other virtual currency offers, it captured the attention of the people of San Pedro and surrounding areas.
As a result of its growing popularity, Maximiliano Firtman, a programming professor and director of an academy in this field, began to investigate the alleged company that offered these benefits. In dialogue with different media outlets, he explained how he discovered that the lie fell under its own weight.
The alleged Knights Consortium scam began with “word of mouth,” but then acquired promoters in San Pedro who began to convince residents to put their money on the platform.
The scheme, as explained, begins as follows: a user funds an account – that is, invests money in dollars or pesos in this company -, acquires cryptocurrencies, and then, that person carries out trading maneuvers to sell those coins. virtual.
Investors are always on the lookout for Telegram messages from a woman of alleged Asian origin – there is no personal information visible – nicknamed “La China”, who at some point during the day or night gives signs of when buy or sell cryptocurrencies, a situation that paralyzes activity in the riverside city.
Who is who in the alleged San Pedro scam
According to Firtman, the promoters of San Pedro also consider themselves as “investors” in the first layer of this foundation. That is, they are not recognized as management members of the company, but as another part of the scheme, who logically have a higher commission. The one who does operate as an official of the company is “La China.”
In line with the above, users who invest must recruit new participants, a classic mechanism in pyramid schemes under the Ponzi scheme. “It’s a simulation they do to people.”
Likewise, he indicated that “the application” that they make investors download on their devices “is troubling”, since “it is not downloaded from official stores.” He also assured that Rainbowex cryptocurrencies “do not exist.”
“Like all Ponzi, initially the withdrawal of money works, because it comes from the money that comes in from new people. That money is what is used to return, that is why it generates curiosity and peace of mind that it works and there are no people who complain “he stated.
“In this particular one they tell you that the money is free and that you can take the money whenever you want. The same thing happened with Generation Zoe,” he noted.
A man who believed in this investment told a television outlet: “A friend put me in in March. He promised me a return in dollars and told me that in 45 days I would receive my initial investment and then I would keep the profits.. With any virtual wallet, he transferred the pesos into USDT and bought the currency through the exchange.” He also assured that he realized that it was a scam when he detected that it had the same structure as the structure that Leonardo Cositorto had, who will be prosecuted for the crime.
“I realized that this was a scam when I saw Cositorto’s movie. It was the same modus operandi,” he said.
Pure blackmail: the alleged foundation paid Polish actors to pretend to have directors
Another situation that worried the San Pedro residents more was what happened after the event held by those responsible for Knight Consortium in the City of Buenos Aires on September 21 at the Hotel Emperador. The excuse for the symposium was, precisely, to be able to calm the concerns of investors, since they did not know the faces or details of any of the directors.
After investigating who had shown their faces at this event, dressed in a suit and tie, Firtman verified that one of the alleged managers was actually a Polish actor named Maurycy Lyczko. When he contacted him, he told him that he had been hired by an Asian person who paid him $1,500 for his performance rehearsed 24 hours before. The second actor, who also played a CEO, is Filip Wałcerz.
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