Original subtitles

I was at the entrance.

Do you have these mirrors they handed out?

I'm going to ask you all,

to please take them out of your pockets.

And hold them in your hands.

I'll ask you

to do as I did so long ago.

And look yourself in the eyes for the first time!

Look at your eyes.

Look at them straight. Put it right in front of your eyes. There.

Because I think you have forgotten about yourselves.

Keep looking in the mirror.

Because I'll read to you what I once told myself.

Do you all have your mirrors?

If you don't, close your eyes and picture a mirror.

Every morning, when I wake up feeling sad,

I look in the mirror,

and I know my heart is big and full of love.

Full of courage to carry on.

What I want is for you to give yourself one last chance.

Staying still is easy. So is staying in the past.

LEONARDO COSITORTO PRESIDENT

Now I invite you to make one last choice

and dare to get on your chair!

Yes, get on your chair!

Stand on your chair!

And make this final choice!

Because human beings, gentlemen, are born to be free!

They're born to become humans!

That is your only opportunity!

Interpol has ordered the arrest of Leonardo Cositorto,

CEO of the Generación Zoe organization.

It's a Ponzi scheme, a scam.

HOW WILL GENERACIÓN ZOE WORK?

Your commission increased

according to the number of friends you could convince.

How many people are freer today than before?

Cositorto directed and promoted

an association to commit an unknown number of crimes.

The so-called business, Generación Zoe, produces nothing.

Their activities are accumulating money, giving back some, and keeping the rest.

GENERACIÓN ZOE WILL HAVE NEW CEO

Who can offer a 7,5% monthly profitability in dollars?

RUMORS OF SCAMS IN GENERACIÓN ZOE BEFORE THE ACCUSATIONS

Who bought a new house or a new car this year?

- Me! - Me!

The scandal around Generación Zoe is growing internationally.

It's not just Colombia, it's in Peru, Ecuador, in the United States.

Guatemala, Mexico.

Spain, Italy, Germany.

How many of us are happier?

What lies behind this cryptocurrency preacher?

Is there anything?

DEFIANT FUGITIVE

My goal was to create a Zoe life, which is a choice.

We don't have to live in the world as it stands.

Of course, it's completely divergent, disruptive,

and different to the world provided by the traditional political system

that puts you under a roof, stuffs you into a box,

gives you a salary, and you earn what the market allows.

In Zoe, on the other hand, you earn depending on your efforts.

Are you following, leaders?

We've escaped the slaving paradigm of culture

and entered the paradigm of fortune.

ILLUSIONS FOR SALE: THE RISE AND FALL OF GENERATION ZOE

Villa María is a city that has almost everything.

We just need a mall.

It's like a big town.

Absolutely. I meet someone and we both surely know the same people.

There's high purchasing power,

and many people have undeclared income sources.

It's a city where people can grow if they're willing to.

Like the Humid Pampas,

Villa María lives off its rural areas.

Twenty-four percent of the national milk production is processed here.

It has also become the number one dairy region

over Sunchales and Rafaela.

There's a lot of industry adding value to what the fields produce.

And this shows the economic power

residing in Villa María and its surroundings.

Leonardo Cositorto knew perfectly what Villa María was.

Otherwise, why would you go to Villa María?

BELÉN VICTIM OF GENERACIÓN ZOE

My name is Belén. I was born in the city. I own a wholesale clothing and shoe store.

I've spent the last seven years on that.

I have two children.

Maybe because of the life I led,

it felt very flat, plain, just more of the same.

I felt I was missing something.

I felt I had more left to discover.

I began studying coaching in 2019.

SEARCH WITH GOOGLE

I saw an opportunity for personal growth.

It made me want to, I don't know, dream again.

Ontological coaching allows us to communicate with the other person

and it involves everything, communication, active listening.

And it's not just about transmitting information,

it's about being able to receive it as well.

My teachers were Claudio Álvarez and Silvia, his mother.

And if we all work as a team,

we'll be able to achieve those extraordinary results.

We went to Silvia's home.

There were ten of us.

Fifteen, tops.

It took me a long time to believe in myself.

And know that I can...

For me, coaching marked a before and after in my life.

...to change things.

They taught us how to see things from another point of view.

How to think differently.

It was always about personal change, about empowering yourself.

Never about the financial side.

Through all this information I acquired through experience...

By the time I finished the course and graduated,

Generación Zoe was already making a foothold in the city.

Hello, team, how are you? Hi to all Cordobeses and everyone else.

FOUNDER OF GENERACIÓN ZOE

Don't miss the opening today, at 5:00 p.m., of one of the offices

that will make history in Argentina and Latin America. The key is opportunity.

Zoe.

This is the reception area.

Today, we're opening here, in Villa María.

Here are our traders.

These are our offices.

Here are the cashiers, so to speak.

Plenty of work. And we already have our space...

SILVIA FERMANI GENERACIÓN ZOE LEADER

...today is the opening.

Have you gone around the office? Have you seen everything?

Do you know when to collect your paycheck? How do you do it?

CLAUDIO ÁLVAREZ GENERACIÓN ZOE LEADER

I saw their change in lifestyle over social media.

Suddenly, they started owning higher-quality goods.

Houses.

Trips.

Cars.

- How are you, Claudio? - Good.

I'm living one of my dreams.

I always used to say...

I said it to my mom, my kids, my whole family,

"One day, I'll own this car."

And it was the wallpaper on my PC for years.

But I never expected

to enjoy this blessing at my age.

We're living it thanks to Leo, the team, and Zoe.

I'm thankful.

So, what did you have three years ago? A Xerox machine?

Yes, a Xerox machine.

So I asked Claudio what this was all about.

And that's when he told me. He invited me to a business presentation.

I attended, and, well...

To tell you what Zoe is all about,

I first I have to tell you

about the essence of Zoe.

It starts with a vision of education, a part of coaching.

However, we understood

that preparation was not enough.

If we couldn't afford our electricity bill,

our water bill, our kids' school, or even just getting sick,

we'd go bankrupt.

That's when this tool was created,

which gives people the chance to receive profit.

And that's when they told me that with an educational membership,

you'd get paid while studying coaching.

EDUCATIONAL PLATFORM

GENERATE INCOME

Our memberships had four pillars.

Number one was always the preparation of leaders.

Then, we came up with the referral plan,

and with every newcomer, people would receive royalties and profit.

And another leg

was tourism.

With a one-time-only investment of $1,600,

we'd take you on trips at least twice over the next two years.

Then there was the fourth pillar,

which was the investment area with 7,5% yields

in the currency in which the person invested.

That was the money given back,

which I determined was enough

for the business to sustain itself and grow.

I told my husband, checked how much money I had in the house,

and he told me, "Yes, absolutely,"

because we were both looking for a chance to grow.

I reached the amount and deposited it.

Hi, how are you? This is Leonardo Cositorto.

I wanted to tell you that for the last 27 years

I've been working in networking, sales, and businesses.

And during those 27 years, I've boarded more than a thousand planes.

A thousand planes that cost me, just in the tickets,

around $500,000, maybe more.

I make a living as a coach. I'm a professional ontological coach.

And we create leaders all over Latin America.

Traveling through Latin America.

Bringing possibilities.

Bringing everything, from the word of God to a business opportunity.

The rumor around the Santa Marta convention was,

RAQUEL GENERACIÓN ZOE VICTIM

"He's a master coach, well-known in Argentina on ontological topics."

"He has experience as a businessman."

Mr. Leonardo Cositorto!

I'd never heard about Leonardo Cositorto before.

When he got on the stage,

the applause was deafening.

And the cheering and yelling just wouldn't stop.

He called our attention.

But what I see is a perception.

An interpretation of an illusion.

But my ego makes me believe that what I see is reality.

He had a good sense for people.

As the Bible says, "For now we see in a mirror."

Because what is it that you see? Yourself.

He made sense.

Say it with me. "Ontological coaching

is not just about information."

"It is a winning paradigm."

THE 21 INSIGHTS

When the talk was over,

they started offering educational packages.

ALL CAREERS AND INSIGHTS ARE FREE

THE KEY TO SUCCESS

What did they cover? Neurolinguistics.

Ontology.

Finance.

I thought about it

because liking and buying, were completely different things.

I wasn't sure about buying.

However, when I returned from lunch and went back to the activity,

I opened my wallet

and found that my money was gone.

Mentally, we will be sharing...

I told the lead coach what had happened.

And he said, "Okay, the stolen money will be counted as part of the payment,

and you can pay off the remaining amount next week."

I thought it was a gesture of solidarity, of support.

I thought, "Okay,

what if I buy it? What if I pay the rest?"

"What's the difference?"

"I'll study, and if I receive any revenue,

it'll be interesting for me."

Add to that

the hypnotic oration

that he had.

It just surrounded me.

It's like he studied and observed people's minds

and knew what they wanted to hear.

When I decided to pay for the rest of the educational package,

I became a member

of the Zoe group school.

COACHING UNIVERSITY

ARGENTINA MARCH 3RD, 2020

First confirmed case of coronavirus.

First positive case of coronavirus.

A 46-year-old man in Italy.

He was asymptomatic.

MARCH 20, 2020

Beginning at midnight,

you must submit to preventative and mandatory social isolation.

No one may move from their residence.

Everyone must stay home.

Hi, during quarantine, I found these new friends

who were always home without me realizing it.

I'll introduce you.

Hi, how are you?

Hi, Maxi.

My name is Maximiliano Batista. I'm 43 years old.

I started working at 11 years old in grocery stores and shopping centers.

At 14, I worked at a funeral home.

At 18, while looking for a job,

MAXIMILIANO BATISTA GENERACIÓN ZOE VICE PRESIDENT

I met Leonardo,

who had a direct selling company.

He had a Toyota Country. Amazing car.

The best suits, Hugo Boss suits.

While I was buying clothes at a thrift shop.

And you could see

how people admired him and applauded him while he gave talks.

I thought, "He's amazing. I want to be like him."

In the morning, you go to the bathroom, look in the mirror, and go, "Woah!"

"I'm so handsome." Come on, everyone.

"I'm so handsome."

"My body is amazing."

"My body is amazing."

Then you should kiss yourself a bit.

So, I started working for his company.

I remember he asked me, "What do you need?"

I said, "I need a stereo and a fridge."

And he said, "If you make manager,

I'll give you the fridge and the stereo."

Of course, I supported Maxi Batista.

I gave him a hand so he could grow, the rest was his own efforts.

And I remember that I worked hard.

I became manager in four and a half months.

But you know how life is.

I worked there for seven or eight months.

After eight months, I had a disagreement with him.

I split from the company and went my own way.

Training challenge for today.

First...

Until the pandemic hit, I was doing all right.

I had four cars working as taxis.

I had a cosmetics company. I'd bought my apartment.

When the pandemic hit, things changed.

The salespeople I had going door to door were all left.

CLOSING, 80 DAYS SHUT DOWN IMPOSSIBLE TO SUSTAIN

I stood outside with a table, stopping people passing by,

selling perfume, creams, and hand sanitizer.

At that point, Leo was living a block away from my office.

We'd started getting in touch.

LEO ONLINE I HAVE A PROJECT TO SHOW YOU

IT'S CALLED GENERACIÓN ZOE

That's when Leo came in and said, "Max, I need a coach to give some talks."

I said, "No problem."

Hi, how are you? I'm giving out ten educational scholarships...

We live in Argentina, wealthy but mentally impoverished.

I'll talk about the three A's.

The three A's are fundamental for success or control over your life.

He paid me for the talks that I gave.

I was just a coach like any other.

We'll tell you what Zoe is about.

Leo's goal is to train a million people

so they can live off this career as coaches.

Have a good night

in all countries in Latin America.

An excellent audience of 326 people,

connected, I imagine, from all over the world.

Welcome to the madness of neuromarketing.

Welcome. It's a pleasure to have you here. I missed teaching you.

During the pandemic, the information became widespread,

and that increased the number of attendants.

The main goal is to democratize education.

That means that any person can have access to result-focused education.

Why do some people achieve greater things than others?

My thanks to all the assistants.

The number of participants just keeps increasing.

PARTICIPANTS

Because we love what we do,

and we're going for more.

During the pandemic, people were at home

and looking for remote work, looking to study.

They needed some economic outlet. They were bored.

That context helped us

grow a bit faster than we expected.

Leo is here too. Leo's online.

Let's open the room.

We opened the room, and 720 people were online, waiting.

Yeah, amazing.

Let me tell you, Claudio, right now I'm in Mexico, and I landed in Cancún.

Look at all the people waiting for you.

Ready for the flight.

I'm ready to head to Cartagena.

Zoe!

Guys, this is the life...

- Zoe! - Zoe!

From Brazil, this is Zoe!

Your life will change

Zoe!

Medellín, here!

I'm thankful to Zoe and Leo Cositorto for allowing me to meet people.

Learning from everyone is an incredible experience.

A great night in Arequipa with a full theater.

Tomorrow will be a bang.

People are delighted, thankful.

I was hospitalized and escaped two hospitals.

So don't talk to me about the pandemic. I've seen it from the inside.

I think I was the first one isolated. Maybe it's COVID, or I'm just crazy.

I'm serious. I escaped from two hospitals.

Roughly in November 2020,

Leo told me, "Max, I need more of your time."

"I need you to travel with me so we can pair up."

REACH THE PEAK OF SUCCESS

I thought, "Maybe I'll do these talks and continue touching people's lives."

You are the one who can bless, the one who can work miracles.

You have that power.

And if you do it, as an employer...

I loved stepping onto the stage,

giving a talk, and watching people transform.

I'd finish the talk, and people would come up and say,

"Max, you changed my life."

"I used to stay in bed all day, couldn't get up."

"And I got up to come to your talks."

I'm Mirian, I was born in Buenos Aires.

I'm married with three kids.

I'm a healthcare professional and hemodialysis technician.

I was told about Zoe by someone I trusted.

MIRIAN VICTIM OF GENERACIÓN ZOE

They said, "I've got something for you that you'll love."

"It'll change your life."

"I've been involved for a while and I think this is right for you."

They explained that it was something real that had a 7,5% monthly yield.

You didn't have to do anything, just that first investment.

It was putting your money to work for you.

And I thought, "I love that."

That's how it went.

I didn't know anything about Zoe.

Not even the logo, who was the CEO, who owned it, who created it.

I signed in with my first membership.

SIGN IN WITH YOUR USERNAME TO ACCESS THE ADMINISTRATION PANEL

That's when the page opened up,

and my name and photo were there.

You could also see the virtual office,

which was called the back office.

Right there in your cell phone, you could see in this beautiful cloud

how, little by little, your money would increase,

and that made you happy.

It was like...

You'd go, "Woah, I've got all this, I can't believe it."

So you wanted to talk about it and share it because it's infectious.

Just imagine, "What are you doing?"

"See?" "What are you up to right now?"

I saw that this could be the path to accomplish my dream,

to financial freedom, to economic independence.

I started having more time for myself, my house, and my kids.

You saw this beautiful world and went, "This is what's coming, the new thing."

I wanted to be part of this new wave because I thought it was interesting.

Very exciting.

By the time you realized, it was all you could think about.

You went to bed thinking of Zoe and got up thinking of Zoe.

I don't remember the date,

but I was invited to a convention in Carlos Paz.

I think they filled ten hotels.

The minimum investment was $400, but if you reached 1,000,

you got access to this convention,

and your hotel would be paid for, your food,

and the ticket to the theater where they gave the talks.

ONTOLOGICAL COACH

There, in Carlos Paz,

I met Cositorto, Max Batista,

and the leaders from other provinces.

It was time for something to show up in the world

that breaks away from culture and routine.

And that has already shown up,

and it's called Generación Zoe.

When we started chatting with people, everyone more or less agreed.

Dreaming again, chasing your dreams. "Hey, what do you want?"

"I got into Zoe because I don't own my home," like me.

You listened to people, and from the millionaires

to the broke newcomers, we were all together.

The speakers were already in the business,

talking about how much they'd invested.

When and how much they'd achieved to date.

Because as an actor, I barely made $700 a month.

And today, I'm making over $15,000 a month in Zoe.

- He's donating $1,000. - I'm so thankful.

We'll add it, make it 1,500. There we go.

He's taking $1,500.

COSITORTOLAND

It's a boy!

He has the same name as my son.

Santiago.

- Where is Santiago? - Back there.

There were stand-up comics and dancing troupes.

And I remember Max getting on stage, Max Batista, and starting dancing.

And he suddenly took off his shirt

and started doing this really sexy dance.

Cositorto was watching him from a balcony,

just enthralled.

It was just like being in Disneyland. I've never been there, but...

What I've seen is like

a fantastic theme park.

A life full of luxuries was all you could achieve with Zoe's help.

And I told my husband,

"I'll speak with Claudio. I want to work at their offices."

"How will you handle that and the shop?" he said.

"No matter. I'll speak with Claudio because,

with the investment I've made so far,

it'll take much longer to achieve what I want."

I was already inside, but I wanted a bit more.

Because regular people would walk up to us

and tell us about their dreams.

"I'm investing my life savings,

and I'm doing it here because I know it'll pay more,

and I'll be able to let my folks retire."

"Because I'll be able to provide a better life for my kids."

That's when it clicked, and I said, "Okay."

"This is the door to a magical world, this is how we get in."

It made me desire everything, particularly being inside, you know?

Living what they were living.

GENERACIÓN ZOE WE UNITE LIVES AND DREAMS

My name is Nahuel Bargaz.

I'm 32 years old.

I used to work in the automotive market.

I mean, I worked at an oil shop. I had my own garage.

A friend showed me what investments were.

NAHUEL BARGAZ GENERACIÓN ZOE TRADER

The world of cryptocurrency, which I didn't understand at first.

But I began to learn,

and that's when I rediscovered my love for learning in the trading world.

Through word of mouth, it spread through the city.

That there was some sort of investment fund with traders.

You could learn while working for them.

And they were already interviewing experienced traders.

BOAT

Ladies and gentlemen, the keyword is opportunity.

Come closer. You might be wondering what trading is.

Trading, my good audience,

is the art of buying low and selling high in the short term

to obtain a profit.

It's as simple as that.

And what are we trading?

Well, there are five options.

Shares or bonds traded on the stock market.

Currencies like the euro, dollar, yen, pound,

in a market called Forex.

Famous cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others.

Commodities, especially gold and silver, among others.

And futures. A contract between two parties

that commit to, at some established future date

and specified price, exchange an asset.

Trading is an activity where you can earn or lose money.

It requires training and dedication.

No one would dream of piloting a plane with just a few internet tutorials.

Right?

The first interview was via Zoom.

They asked if I could go to their office for the second interview.

I showed up, and they explained their work methodology.

I said I liked it.

What kind of trader wouldn't want to work managing capital

and doing what they like? It's every trader's dream.

The place was harmonious. The offices were well put together.

You could get there, boot up your PC,

talk to your coworker, and go,

"What pair are you analyzing today? What are you looking at?"

Working at a place where I can develop what I studied,

I can help people obtain capital,

I can expand my level of trading.

It all flowed from there.

The first thing they did with us was put us through a test process.

They wanted to see how well we could follow the instructions

of an expert trader.

Well, that expert was Rosa. María Rosa.

Hello, Maracaibo. I'm Rosa María González Rincón,

calling from Argentina.

I'm working for Zoe designing three platforms

that are changing the way we transfer, generate, and invest our money.

I also work as a professional trader for the company.

With a team in Córdoba, Argentina,

we generated $125,000 in profit just last week.

She had a clear knowledge of the business.

And she was admirable.

When I started working, I did a bit of everything.

Then, I moved on to customer service,

welcoming the people that were there to invest in the business.

Some people got to the office already knowing how it all worked

because word of mouth spread.

WELCOME TO ZOE ZOE PREMIUM - I'M NEW

You had to be brought in by another person.

If I brought someone in,

I'd get a commission for showing the business to someone else.

That person would bring another,

and they'd also receive a benefit for getting them into the business.

Everyone in my network,

up to the eighth line, in a perfect five matrix,

are around 400,000 people.

If my network has 1,000 people,

they each get their PIN,

and each PIN will pay me $100 up to the eighth line.

How much do I earn immediately?

- A hundred thousand. - What currency?

- Dollars. - $100,000.

The people coming from a low-to-middle-class background

reinvested the money we made.

Then there was another kind of people.

Business people.

Lawyers, bankers.

And that was a lot of money.

Some people would get paid $60,000.

I signed those receipts.

That's $60,000. He showed up and walked away with that much.

Once, a man showed up

with cardboard boxes full of dollars

covered with a trash bag.

He walked into the office kicking boxes.

Like, "Where do I put this?" "What do you have there?"

"It's the cash." "In that box?" "Yeah, I've got the dollars."

There were $200,000 in those boxes.

It was amazing.

I had never seen so much money together.

TO "EL DIARIO" ALWAYS WITH ITS WORKERS

September 2021.

The first thing was an article in the local press,

including our newspaper, El Diario del Centro del País,

about the arrival of a football team

that would take a spot

in the Villa María football league, Deportivo Zoe.

SERGIO VAUDAGNOTTO JOURNALIST "EL DIARIO"

A new team that made the news. It was the first time this happened.

It came from the economic side of things rather than the social.

A team with well-known sports personalities...

A DIFFERENT FOOTBALL CLUB WITH DISCIPLINE

...at a provincial and national level.

SPIRITUAL COACHING

MENTAL FORTITUDE

Based on that,

I wouldn't say I started looking into it,

but it struck me as odd.

And I started paying more attention.

When I saw

that the receptionist at the clinic didn't work there anymore...

"Where did they go?" "They're working with Zoe now."

When you go to the car dealership to service your car,

and you find out that the salesperson who had sold you your last car was gone...

And you start seeing cars with the logo... Not just any cars.

Audi.

Cooper.

BMW, all with the Zoe logo.

I wondered, "What's going on?"

A similar situation happening in Villa María comes to mind,

with a firm called Soluciones Diarias.

IN SEARCH OF SOLUTIONS CLIENT SAYS HER PAYMENTS WERE NOT FOUND

The first thing I thought of

was inquiring with the National Securities Commission

to see if this business, Generación Zoe, was registered as such.

And the Commission said no,

that they'd already sent them a notice in October

to cease their economic activities.

EVERY DAY EL DIARIO OF VILLA MARÍA

I felt a bit lonely trying to figure out the catch,

so I published the first article.

I wrote it one night.

And while I wrote the article,

I didn't want it to happen again.

THE SECURITIES COMMISSION DECLARED CESSATION FOR ZOE

We've just opened Aviva Zoe in our offices two weeks ago,

we can't be surprised about these kinds of attacks, right?

CLAUDIO ÁLVAREZ GENERACIÓN ZOE LEADER - VILLA MARÍA

Because it's likely they'll keep coming. You know what? I just got a text

from our leader,

and it says,

"What? You thought you'd take over the city,

take over the entire region and get a standing ovation?"

"Don't be naive."

By November, Zoe Broker came online.

And they said we'd have the chance

to work with bigger capital.

We're talking about $50,000.

Hello, Zoe community. We're here in the offices of Zoe Broker,

showing you a bit of what our platform is all about.

This is our brain.

This is the license that makes us an official international broker

and allows us to operate on different financial markets.

We invested a huge amount of money over several months.

A huge amount.

It cost us over $3 million to obtain that broker,

and we started opening 50,000-dollar accounts.

One per trusted client or country.

Then, we opened 250,000-dollar accounts.

Then, we moved to the rest of the markets,

Forex, Futures, and synthetic indices.

We had 350 traders working around the clock,

and during their trading, they made between 1% and 2% daily.

That one or two percent daily became a 25 to 40% monthly revenue.

Rosa María made 90%.

She managed to reach 97% profit in one month, and she showed everyone.

PRESIDENT OF ZOE CORPORATION

We're happy. Rosa María received an award just 17 days

after starting work on synthetic indices.

She's producing extraordinary results every day.

We wanted to reward her today.

She's giving us an example of humility, devotion, and discipline.

One person might be living on the street, begging for money.

And the other is creating their own income, like we do in Zoe.

You'd invest, have your back office, and see your daily interest.

NORMA GENERACIÓN ZOE VICTIM

Compound interest, I didn't know what those were.

Reinvesting... There were a lot of things.

But it didn't click for me because it was light on paperwork.

And that's when Yrimia came in, who we knew was a former judge.

At the end of March 2021

the president of the company showed up in my office

and asked me, "What do you see?"

"What must I do to comply with the regulations in Argentina?"

DR. HÉCTOR YRIMIA GENERACIÓN ZOE LEGAL ADVISOR

The goal today is to show that our economic group

is a lawfully constituted company,

duly registered before the General Inspectorate of Justice,

the assets regulated by the Ministry of Justice,

we're a... This is all regulated.

Today, every participant is part of the trust.

They are no longer franchise, but participants.

They don't receive interest. They receive dividends.

But this man arrived to assuage our doubts.

Yrimia told me, "Max, the trust will make the company bulletproof."

"You'll have a $120 million insurance."

"If anything happens to the company, you're bulletproof."

I'd like to sum it up

with a funny but real event.

A journalist once asked Kissinger,

"How come you have so much money?"

And they might someday ask us, "How did Zoe make so much money?"

But Kissinger wouldn't answer until he finally said,

"You have to make your first million."

Then, the follow-up question, "How did you make your first million?"

He answered, "By any means." "And then?" "Complying with the law."

He assured us,

publicly, that we could rest easy

because he, as the legal director,

was in charge of the legality

of all Zoe products.

The other day, Maxi was right here with me,

and I told him, "Maxi, we're going all in into Bitcoin."

Being next to Leo meant talking about opportunity,

about growth, about what would happen.

When people came up to me and said, "Hey, Maxi, I've got a business for you,"

I'd go, "Don't talk to me, talk to Leo. He owns the company."

He took over all ideas and all projects.

Two people brought their dream to the company,

and now they earn good money.

We want our puppies and kitties to be in a good place.

Who has a dog or a cat?

The businesses, undoubtedly,

were what gave me the most reassurance, without a doubt.

Hey, guys, I'm here with Leíto...

Impressive.

We bought two Zoe Burger establishments,

approximately $60,000 each,

plus the refurbishing, and on the other side, you had Zoe Car.

You saw that they had shares in different companies.

The cars were there, and so was the dealership.

ZOE CARS

Everything was growing, getting bigger.

And we were everywhere.

Because we are what we digest.

We are compact emotions, and we are what we declare.

So we declared Zoe Natural, and it has materialized today.

Thank you, Leo. Thank you, Maxi.

You wanna know something else, ladies? A whole gallery...

For a full beauty center. Complete.

Surgeries for my colleagues.

Suddenly, they were all dressed up.

Or with a Mini Cooper.

Plus, we'll open our first kindergarten

and primary school

so our children can get the education they deserve.

Bravo!

A school without any strikes!

What Leonardo Cositorto was generating was an ecosystem,

a community of people within Zoe.

Those people went to the Zoe gym, to the burger place.

If they wanted a car, they could buy it.

WHAT YOU MUST KNOW - CRYPTOCURRENCY

Zoe cash. We're already at the Zoe market cap.

You can see that the currency is at 0,20 cents of a dollar.

Our own cryptocurrency,

which we created after investing more than $4 million.

And the publicity they showed kept increasing.

They'd explore more countries.

People in Australia were interested, in Great Britain, in Italy.

Leo, here are your planes.

And we opened up a Futswap in Sweden.

We opened our offices in Miami.

Leonardo had bought football teams

in Spain, Paraguay, and Thailand.

We were with Deportivo Español.

You should be a steel gate. Score two goals or more, 2,4 million.

MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH

You'll take 100,000 pesos home.

Tomorrow or the day after,

we'll give you the wallet, the crypto coin,

you'll have 55,000 extra pesos.

Keep it because the company will safeguard it,

but if anyone wants to exchange it, they can.

Do you know what things are made of?

- Raw materials, right? - Yes!

What is the raw material of something you can't see?

Faith! Faith makes up what you cannot see.

We've won this match before even playing!

We opened Zoe Paradise.

WE'RE CREATING PARADISE

When Zoe Paradise appeared, I was in a group,

and Leonardo said, "Each lot is worth this much."

You can't miss out.

Hi, how are you?

If you buy it in cash, it's 54,000.

You'll get three lots in the metaverse, that's an investment.

You'll see everything being generated. And you can choose quickly.

If that works, I'll put you in touch with the payment team so you can choose.

You tell me, Leo. Is it in cash or bank notes?

This is all a whirlwind for me, but all right.

VOICE OF VICTIM

I'll listen to my heart and go ahead.

These are all my savings, so I'll trust you and follow you.

Zoe Paradise is an excellent investment, you'll see.

It was a business holding where you saw it wasn't just Zoe

but many companies behind Zoe.

ZOE AIRLINE, ZOE WATER, ZOE CAR, AVIVA ZOE, ZOE HEALTH, ZOE TRAVEL

We started seeing there was support,

there were businesses that gave us solidity.

Well, we're on the way to the plane

headed to Dubai.

It's a 28-hour flight. Keep that in mind.

DUBAI UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

The world is ruled by love, so don't love money and use people

because you'll lose what you have.

The other way around, you'll multiply it.

Yrimia said that we had to set up companies in Dubai

because their taxes are lower than anywhere else in the world.

We're here to open a business.

Zoe Dubai, obviously.

We're also here to open Zoe Football.

We want to set up a clinic.

The lawyers, the accountant, and Yrimia recommended

that he get a person he could trust.

When I signed on as vice president of Generación Zoe,

he said, during a conversation, "Max, it's not a partnership."

"I need someone I can trust

who won't ask me for shares or anything in the future."

We're in the house of one of the owners of the Dubai banks.

With a private beach in his home.

And in Dubai, it just felt like one more experience.

Look. Oh, I don't wanna look.

Look at this. Look at where we're having dinner.

You'd see them

and enjoy it because it was like you were there.

Among all animals, leaders should choose to be camels.

They're the only ones carrying water so that others may cross the desert.

When I told him in Dubai

that we should buy a gold mine,

Luis Yrimia told me that was good business.

He brought in a person that he said was the owner of Sol Petróleo,

they sold me a portion of a gold mine in San Juan,

named León, and another mine.

LEÓN MINE

And they said they could deliver a certain amount of gold.

They priced it at around $500,000.

To us, at that time,

$500,000 was half a day of resource generation.

The gold mines existed.

I visited the Court of Mines to verify their existence.

I spoke to the judge, and they were in working conditions.

Then, Cositorto drew up a contract

where he would make partial payments,

and the final installment would give the license to explore the mine

to the Zoe company.

They laughed at us when we said we'd back our coin with gold!

And I declare tonight.

We'll exchange Zoe Cash for gold! One gram, one coin!

One gram, one coin!

One gram, one coin!

GET YOUR FREEDOM WITH ZOE CASH

The last thing we're doing here, the cherry on top,

will be the acquisition of the mines.

We've got the first two, and we'll also exploit another mine.

And even though we are not the owners, we will be allowed extraction.

And pretty soon, we'll have a film crew inside the mine

to show we're extracting the first grams of gold.

Bravo!

Bravo!

Everything I'm saying is accurate. You can see it, and you can touch it.

You can't buy a gold mine in Argentina...

JULIANA COMPANYS DISTRICT ATTORNEY

...nor the space where gold is extracted.

Mines of raw metals, like gold, are the property of the state.

These are concessions given through bids,

and the exploiter will take a percentage

while the state takes the rest.

Yrimia says, "I've got a Chinese investor

that will bring 100 million dollars to the company to exploit the mine."

So that Zoe Cash would get to all Chinese supermarkets

and people could pay with it.

Since I wasn't involved in the business or anything...

Was it all a lie?

Only Yrimia knows that.

I wanted to tell you that this Friday and Saturday,

I'll be in the ABC theater. You can't miss it.

You and all your friends.

Coaching, mentoring, and the best business in the world are in your hands. Bye.

COLOMBIA NOVEMBER 2021

How is everyone?

- Hey. - This night is just starting.

After this night,

no one will come out the same as they entered.

So I want you to give a hand

to the person who can't stop shining since he got here

because everyone loves him.

Max Batista. Maxi, get over here!

Good evening!

We grew 8,000% in 2021.

We were earning 40 or 50 million dollars a month.

So, I was handling $1 million to $1,5 million per day.

First, I'd like to thank God for putting me here in front of you.

Second, I'd like to thank Leo.

Here is another great inspirational leader who has been very close to us.

- Founder of Zoe. - Founder of Zoe.

And he's ready to...

inspire and charm you.

Again.

Welcome, Leo Cositorto!

The company usually multiplied not by 8,000%,

but rather 400%,

and then, we were making around two billion dollars.

Are any Colombians in the room?

Go Colombia!

It's not a unicorn. It's a double unicorn.

But we're speaking on a global scale.

Today, we have 64 offices all over the world.

This month, we've transferred over 20 million in profit

to the hands of all partners and members of Zoe.

And today,

we're 58,000 people all over the world!

Look at what we're doing here!

We should go to a stadium next time, right?

Yes!

In the following years,

we'll create social and political movements

so that in the future, we could be leading

one, two, three, four, five, or six countries in Latin America.

I'd like to make a closing statement.

A journalist

from Villa María

named Sergio

sent an e-mail

because he found that in Villa María...

SECURITIES COMMISSION DECLARES CESSATION FOR ZOE

...people are leaving traditional jobs.

Secretaries, bankers,

they're leaving their old jobs that made them 200, 300 dollars a month,

to do what?

To work for Zoe!

What's the problem?

I do not fear any man!

No man!

I'll only kneel before God!

Jesus said, "And greater works than these will they do."

What we achieved between us

are things not even the Lord managed while he was on this earth,

but he promised we would make greater works,

and greater works are coming.

UNCOVERING PYRAMID SCAM TWEET

Beto Mendeleiev is obviously an alias.

I never knew who it was, and I didn't ask.

He was a Twitter user who started exposing what Generación Zoe was...

#ZOESCAM

...around October 2021.

JAVIER SMALDONE COMPUTER SCIENTIST

He didn't have many followers back then. I remember I saw some of it,

but I didn't think much of it then.

I had other things going on, work and stuff.

I've worked in computer science for around three decades.

And in my spare time, I tweet.

I'd already seen a few scams passed around,

so-called miracle businesses

based on cryptocurrencies, whatever was trending.

And I found something called Generación Zoe,

which was really pretty funny.

Don't sell your house to invest.

Invest 500 dollars, 1,000 dollars.

Don't have any money? Sell the dog!

When I started looking into this and seeing the world of Generación Zoe,

I was intrigued by Leonardo Cositorto as a person,

and I wondered, "Where did he come from? Who is he?"

Looking into his background,

it turned out his father

was a businessman in the publishing sector

who went bankrupt sometime at the beginning of the '80s.

Then,

to make ends meet, he went door to door selling books.

And he took Leonardo Cositorto

and his brother Guillermo along.

There, Cositorto learned

or developed his ability for direct sales.

Street sales, going door to door.

- Hey, you're a cop, right? - Yes, sir.

We have a sale in the area...

You can't sell anything here.

Don't get mad, I'm sorry. I didn't know. I'll talk to the manager.

- Okay. - I thought this was legal.

- Is the station around here? - Two blocks to the left.

- To the left? Around the block? - Yes.

- Are you Corporal Flores? - Yes, how did you know?

Because of your badge. Thank you, and I'm sorry.

Thank you. See you later. Let's go to the police station right now.

Good morning. Is this the police station?

Corporal Flores sent me, we have a sale going on.

He told me that...

In the '90s, Cositorto was a trainer for salespeople.

He was a bit of a chameleon.

He spoke differently according to the moment and the place.

Always presenting himself as a revolutionary hero,

a successful businessman about to change the economy.

About to create millionaires.

At some point, he also entered the world of Evangelism.

Sometimes, He gives, and sometimes, He takes.

And He takes so He can give again.

In simple terms, Catholic theology says that being poor is a good thing.

The theology of prosperity says that God actually wants you to be rich.

If you're poor, that's because you're on bad terms with God.

Get down on your knees if you have to, in the name of Jesus.

With all your heart.

No other place is higher

Or greater

Than here at Your feet

Than here at Your feet

It was hard to believe at first.

Who would ever give money to these people

who were just door-to-door salesmen?

DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

I was coming back from vacation. It had been a long year.

The first day, they showed me documents. "This is Leonardo Cositorto."

I'm Juliana Companys, district attorney

on the second shift in Villa María, Córdoba province, Argentina.

My legal secretary, Florencia Bortolussi,

with Alejandro Bianco and Germán Livingston, my employees,

and said, "Look at this."

They gave me a bunch of documents titled "Zoe."

"What is this?"

And she told me she'd been investigating.

They'd found out via social media, and this scam was exactly the same

as Soluciones Diarias, which had happened five years ago in Villa María.

In the middle of what she was telling me,

I went, "Put something together. We still don't have any victims."

The office got a call

that said the same thing.

Initially, we thought Zoe was a moneylender.

There is high purchasing power here in Villa María,

especially from people with undeclared income,

who invest in illegal fixed-income securities for a percentage,

then their money is loaned out.

So I told Alejandro Bianco to go to Zoe, here in Villa María,

and to get a loan.

He describes some kind of huge office, too big for Villa María.

"They've got a ton of computers, ma'am, and they're all typing away."

"They took me to the back, there were a few chairs,

they were having coffee, they offered me some."

"It was a really nice office, ma'am."

He thought there was a lot of money there.

So he asked for the loan.

They said it wasn't a loan.

That he should invest.

They offered him a $500 investment for a 7,5 yield.

And that if he brought in family members, he would get 20% per family member.

That's when Ale came back and told me,

"It's not a moneylender, ma'am, it's a pyramid scheme. Totally."

In the penal code, for a crime to be committed

we need to have a victim of the scam.

So we figured we'd wait until a victim came forth.

WHO THE HELL WOULD GIVE MONEY TO A DUDE CALLED COSITORTO?

What really stood out to me in Zoe

was how disproportionate and ridiculous the economic offer was.

Anyone who promised a monthly yield of 7,5% in dollars

was clearly heading for ruin.

Florencia told me that, on Twitter, some users were talking about Cositorto

and it being a pyramid scheme.

JAVIER SMALDONE - YOU ASK WHAT ZOE IS. LIKE THE MATRIX, BUT COSITORTO OWNS IT.

It's happened before, and it happened with this,

that when I take up a topic,

I become the center of attention,

and that leads to many others getting in touch to provide information.

THE SLY LIVES OFF FOOLS, FOOLS LIVE OFF THEIR WORK

We saw the tweets, of course,

and we were outraged.

We were furious.

Our question was, "How did they get in? How do they know?"

"Who's feeding them information? Why are they here?"

OSVALDO 'BETO' MENDELEIEV DEPOSIT USDT AND YOU WILL RECEIVE ZOE CASH

It was a bit of keeping up with what Cositorto did on Twitter.

Start identifying who's who and how they operated.

When my Twitter friends started tweeting,

I started picking up on their comments

and supporting myself with them,

because I figured I should go on. I wasn't alone anymore.

I started becoming the bad guy in the movie.

People really believed in Cositorto.

Hello, Sergio. What you're doing is an embarrassment.

You're stubborn and not taking charge of what you started.

You did some real damage to me. You manipulated people with your paper.

I don't know, you might feel really powerful with your paper.

Unfortunately, I'll have to take legal action against your newspaper,

your person, and your co-op.

And it's not a threat,

it's my right as a human being.

He was very aggressive.

He said things that were out of line because I was just doing my job.

Meanwhile, he was going to the media to say the exact opposite.

Most coaching schools are great,

but they were designed in the last century.

CRYPTOCURRENCIES IN ARGENTINE FOOTBALL

It would be a triumph. Currencies are driven by usability and trust.

When I saw that,

Leo giving interviews on TV,

I was ecstatic. "Look, the leader. My director."

"There he is. Switch the channel, Mom! That's him!"

The guy kept going. He bought pages in big Argentine newspapers.

"This big Argentine newspaper is saying this."

"Why is this Villa María newspaper saying such things?"

SPONSORED CONTENT

GENERACIÓN ZOE WAS LICENSED BY THE NATIONAL SECURITIES COMMISSION

I developed a robot.

It's nothing more than a system of signals

working through a series of mathematical and statistical models

that predict how high or how low the market will go.

ZOE ROBOT

Rosa María promised powerful bots.

I had a disagreement with Leonardo about that,

"Leonardo, let's stick to the 7,5, it's profitable, let's not go too high."

He said, "I own the company, so I make the decisions."

"If I followed your lead, the company would be ruined."

"That's why I'm the owner, not you."

CHRISTMAS ROBOT FROM DECEMBER 6TH TO 13TH

In December 2021,

they launched their latest great investment,

the so-called Christmas robot, which doubled your money in three months.

And that was an avalanche of money.

Picture it, December.

End-of-year bonuses, Christmas, New Year, vacations.

People were desperate.

That was the biggest fund collection

that Zoe ever had regarding bots.

It was a snowball that got bigger as they promised more and more.

And people kept buying it.

More and more, more illusions and more fantasies, wanting more.

It was a balloon, growing larger until...

it popped.

COSITORTOLAND

Jesus, on the cross, said, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do."

I can open Twitter and read ten awful things,

just read them and nothing more.

FUNNY THING ABOUT A PYRAMID SCHEME IS, SOME PEOPLE ALREADY PROFITED

Our tweets

had a sense of humor.

We weren't really laughing at the victims, we were making fun of him.

COSITORTO IS THE GOOSE THAT LAYS GOLDEN EGGS

Most of the things we published came from archival footage.

Produced by them, and we, of course, recorded the Zoom meetings

that Cositorto devoted to us at night,

where most of the time he would complain about Twitter users

paid by the powers that be that wanted to destroy Zoe.

This is the style of these people being paid by who knows.

And they've got bots online,

spreading things on social media and Twitter.

COSITORTO IS AN EVANGELICAL PASTOR...

They were messing with something that was ours.

And we took it personally.

So we started talking among us.

And we began building an army.

I'M 100% ZOE

A Twitter army.

LET'S GO, LEO!

We had this strategy.

#ZOERESISTS

#KEEPSTRONGZOE #WEREALLZOE

We'd tweet at dawn so we'd be more visible.

Because we had to defend the place we'd invested in,

and if that place suffered, so would we.

#DONOTMESSWITHZOE

JANUARY 2022

Roughly in the middle of January,

people were starting to ask about their money.

They wanted their money, but it wasn't there.

We were the ones to bear that.

What unbalanced the whole structure

was that famous Christmas bot.

CHRISTMAS ROBOT FROM DECEMBER 6TH TO 13TH

When they had to start facing those payments, the money wasn't there.

Everybody wanted to withdraw the money they'd invested.

That money was invested in different businesses, different things.

At that time, there was one person

who had his trust.

I told him, "Tell me the truth, I'm the one facing the music

with my colleagues, in front of people."

"Well," he said, "you deserve the truth."

He said the money wasn't there.

They couldn't find the money.

They didn't know what'd happened.

I entered the administrative WhatsApp group where Cositorto was

with his right-hand people.

And I demanded explanations.

And the administration answered,

"Insist on investments, push the bots."

"Keep telling people to give their money."

"Please answer my question."

I sent them an audio telling them they were shameless.

That I'd tell people what was going on.

They removed me from the administrative group.

Of all groups.

That's when I sent out all my audios, like crazy, to the community in general.

The only one to blame is Cositorto, man.

He's got all the cash, I've got audios from the Vice President

where he says Leo has all the liquidity.

He should pay.

JANUARY 8, 2022

Hello team, we're leaving. Here's Maxi. We're going to Uruguay.

Uruguay, Buenos Aires, Mexico, Colombia,

then back to Buenos Aires.

The year just started. Tighten up your belts.

Say hi, Maxi!

I don't remember what Twitter user

uploaded the video of them boarding a private jet to Uruguay.

So we saw that image,

saw them leaving the country.

ZOE LEADER LEFT THE COUNTRY. WILL HE RETURN?

Team, I want to say hi from here, from Santo Domingo.

Since this morning,

the attacks against my person have continued,

and against the organization as well.

You know that a collapsed model in a system that resists change

won't let a new model function,

as in an entrepreneurship and business model like ours.

We won't stop sowing. We won't let the opportunity pass us by.

It's vital that we understand each other, that we support each other, all of us,

and that we can take a step forward as a community,

consolidating the organization.

At that moment,

we trusted and listened to everything that Leo said.

He said we should remain united, that they wanted to split us up,

that they wanted to destroy the company and that this would be over soon.

But that we should be patient,

so at that point, we still defended and supported the entire community.

Good evening, everybody.

Thanks for joining and answering the call.

We're 8,000, 9,000 people right now.

And in these circumstances, it's very important

that you can see how we respond

in the face of provocation, of a systemic attack.

For example, right now on Argentina's social media

there is a man, I will share it now, his name is Beto, supposedly.

Notice how he uses a fake profile picture.

This is what he's posting right now. He's obviously here on the Zoom call.

You have no idea who you're engaging with.

We should all learn about the word "engagement."

First, Beto, if that's your name, you should learn to engage with yourself

and heal the hatred inside you,

which is sending a growing company to shit

with your crappy personality.

You sold yourself to the powers that be, who knows for how much money.

All newspapers and journalists are angry

at the fact that a new generation was born into the world.

What lies behind this cryptocurrency preacher?

Is there anything?

It became more and more frequent until it got to the point

that Generación Zoe was an everyday term.

They brought up Generación Zoe over and over,

along with Leonardo Cositorto.

He set up an enormous scam system through Generación Zoe.

There are always scammers.

We started feeling the tension.

Because it was all over the media.

They were calling it a scam.

It's incredible that on TV right now, they say, "Scams and scandal."

I'd compare it to owning a grocery store.

Someone opens another store a block away

and starts hanging signs that say, "That guy sells rotten meat and produce."

They start attacking you via the media.

At some point, people will stop buying from you,

it all goes to hell and your business sinks.

Hello, leaders. Good day, good afternoon.

I wanted to greet you from here

and discuss some points so that they're clear.

The steps to take today and tomorrow, especially.

It's crucial that we are...

Instead of giving up and saying, "This is as far as we go,

we lost the money, and we don't know how to repay our investors,"

their answer was to launch a more tempting offer with more profits.

To access the last and only bot that is active...

There are no other bots...

This four-month progressive bot with 20, 25, 30, 35 percent...

FINAL ROBOT 4 MONTHS PROGRESSIVE TOTAL PROFIT 110%

It was a way to support

and show our trust in the company,

because they had no liquidity with which to pay the members.

And we went all-in on the final robot because it was the last chance.

There was no other.

FINAL ROBOT CLICK HERE

My main concern was to have money coming in.

It didn't matter how much you had.

In those final moments, the vital thing was to get money in.

So that also should have alerted us.

It should've made us go, "This isn't working."

The lack of trust.

At that moment, people were hurrying us, pressuring us.

There were colleagues

who couldn't take the strong emotions we were exposed to there.

They didn't want to go to work.

We had cars following us to our homes.

We were already scared.

It was all really shady.

Colleagues were being threatened.

Some colleagues in the police force that worked with me

were being really threatened.

Things got really nasty

after some violent incidents.

People showed up with weapons

to get their money in the Núñez offices.

And things came to a head when they closed the Villa María offices.

I'll be straight. I won't wait for the company.

VOICE OF VICTIM

Until you return what you took from our friends and me, I won't stop.

You keep giving me excuses, telling me you'll sell things.

All lies.

I'm not a kid anymore.

If you don't care about your family

or yourself,

I'll expose you.

You don't have the guts to pick up the phone and call,

you motherfucking son of a bitch.

You've got until January 16th. I'm here for the 30 grand I invested.

POLICE

VOICE OF VICTIM

That's it, I'm done, man.

They broke into the offices.

They trashed the place, and attacked people.

Some of them even had weapons.

#GIVEBACKTHEMONEY

They settled with five.

BUSINESS NOT REAL

#ZOETHIEVES

They took it, we have no money.

Everyone here wants their money.

ZOE DISMANTLES OFFICE IN ALICANTE AFTER ACCUSATIONS OF PYRAMID SCHEME

ZOE SPAIN: FROM "EXPONENTIAL GROWTH" TO "I DON'T HAVE A SINGLE CENT," SAYS LEADER

YRIMIA: "ONLY BATISTA AND COSITORTO KNOW WHERE THE MONEY IS"

Not a single call, no one checked on you at home.

This is all empty, they took everything.

#ZOESCAM

There are no computers, no money. They took everything from the safe.

We worked the last week alone, without the leaders.

We closed on February 14th.

All of a sudden, the office in Villa María closed up without a warning.

Just a list of numbers that said, "Call these. We're gone."

Some investors visited daily, asking what to do.

And we just didn't know what to do.

The only thing we could suggest was to get in touch with the DA

who was working on this.

At that point, we had the case pretty much made.

We had arrest and search warrants.

Because we'd identified the organization.

We even had registered addresses for all.

We were just waiting for the first victim.

And that victim arrived on February 17th,

three of them, in fact.

They told us they hadn't been paid.

What we did was immediately order the Álvarez couple to be arrested.

We already knew that Cositorto and Batista were out of the country,

so we ordered the search of the addresses we had acquired.

SEARCH

When we got to those addresses, there was nobody there. They were empty.

They had emptied out the office in Villa María, Zoe Villa María.

Why? Because actually, there was a federal police officer

who also worked as Claudio Álvarez's bodyguard.

JUAN GÓMEZ WHATSAPP AUDIO

When we ordered the search,

this federal police officer

contacted Claudio Álvarez, calling him at 2:30 a.m.

"You're getting raided tomorrow. Go on the run. Give me back my money."

He wanted the money he'd invested in Zoe, and then they went on the run.

A series of searches were carried out today in Villa María

due to fraud reports against this organization,

ordered by the district attorney, Juliana Companys.

That was on Friday. On Monday,

an international arrest warrant was issued for Batista and Cositorto.

ALERT

This is happening right now.

They've issued the international arrest warrant

for Leonardo Nelson Cositorto.

It was the first time we issued an international warrant.

We hadn't had the pleasure before.

So to speak.

We got in touch with Interpol.

We couldn't really identify where they were.

But we did know that before the warrant,

Maxi Batista was headed to Mexico and Spain.

MADRID SPAIN

Maxi, did you ever feel like Leo cut you loose?

Like he abandoned you?

MAXIMILIANO BATISTA GAVE AN INTERVIEW WHILE ON THE RUN ON MARCH 18TH, 2022.

I'm not in touch with Leo.

I'd like to see what's going on in his head.

What is he thinking?

What was he thinking when he said, "It's fine, let's keep going"?

Because I just...

I didn't get how this could be happening.

Division causes chaos.

What happened in the company was that some people had too much power.

The people with too much power were the ones that handled everything.

The business, the money.

And while they handled that, they took a lot of money.

There was plenty of stealing, plenty of betrayals.

I'm living the worst nightmare of my life.

I've never felt this way.

I know what dying feels like.

Because

I feel like I died.

So, I started...

to live differently because I understood

that you can be both alive and dead.

And it felt like my soul died.

There are four arrests in the Zoe case.

Four people are detained after turning themselves in

at the Villa Carlos Paz Judicial Unit.

To this date, four out of the seven fugitives

have turned themselves in.

They are Claudio Álvarez, Ivana Álvarez,

Schamme Silvio and Fermani Silvia.

Cositorto tried to pretend that he was back in Colombia.

He published a photo on Instagram

of him swimming in a pool with some expensive sunglasses.

WE'LL RISE BACK UP IN APRIL

It said he was somewhere in Colombia.

But he'd made a post, a Zoom call,

in which the background was very similar to a cabin complex

where they were supposed to build one of Zoe's relaxation centers.

We noticed some similarities between the backgrounds and thought,

"Maybe Cositorto is hiding there."

And Cositorto didn't like this.

He came out very angry, visibly angry,

on a Zoom call in the same place.

Team, I am now forced to make this video

to show them so that they finally realize

that where I am is nowhere near Cartagena de Indias.

That I'm not a moron, I'm no idiot.

So don't underestimate me.

I wouldn't be in a place where they could find me so easily.

And they're putting people's lives in jeopardy.

Stop your lies and slander.

It's been six months of you screwing with this community.

Two things make a big impact on social media.

Outrage and humor.

I prefer, and clearly, Beto Mendeleiev does as well,

to take things with a bit of humor. Have a laugh.

We're launching the first point: Lands.

These lands are legendary lands.

WE'RE THE NEW GENERACIÓN ZOE

One day, they left the Zoom whiteboard open

so anyone could draw things.

Guys, please disable the whiteboard.

And they drew things from pyramids to penises,

even wrote "Beto lives,"

after Beto Mendeleiev had his account taken down.

You're sharing your screen, you can do it.

No, I'm not sharing it,

James' team is sharing it.

- Thank you, leaders, for being here. - Thanks.

- Despite the sabotage. - Thanks.

Then, in another presentation,

someone managed to get camera privileges

and showed up with an Egyptian pharaoh avatar.

Please authorize Camilo León.

And Cami, go ahead, you have the floor.

Leonardo,

I don't know what to add that hasn't already been said.

If someone

has anything to add...

Cositorto said he was in Colombia because his Zoom said he was in Medellín.

But his phone was pinging off the Dominican Republic.

Even though he was using a NAT gateway to log into Zoom through the dark web,

which is the part of the internet that is not visible to people,

he set it up to Spain.

In general, he used Spain.

He used his phone in the Dominican Republic,

and it wasn't on the NAT.

So that told us his exact physical location.

We're now communicating with Leonardo Cositorto.

COSITORTO ACCUSED OF SCAM AND UNLAWFUL ASSOCIATION

He is on the run. Cositorto, good evening.

I don't know if you could tell us where you're speaking from today.

How are you, Gustavo? Good evening.

Nice to greet you, and here I am.

Right now, we're in the Dominican Republic.

And why are you on the run from Argentine law, Cositorto?

I'm not on the run, I haven't run from anywhere,

I was simply on a trip. A tour. We're in 21 countries.

Regarding Maxi Batista, we knew he was in touch with his daughter.

We searched the daughter's house.

He was on the phone with her when we knocked on the door.

We ordered her to hang up because we had a warrant.

And then Batista's brother showed up at the search

and told us that Batista didn't want this for his daughter.

That same day, he decided to return to Argentina and turn himself in.

Here is Maximiliano Batista.

MARCH 21, 2022

Will you make a statement, Maximiliano?

CÓRDOBA POLICE

Will Cositorto turn himself in, Maximiliano?

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Now, back to Cositorto. What did Interpol do?

Together with the Dominican Republic Interpol,

they started looking at the backgrounds of his recordings.

Those backgrounds were common in rented beach houses.

So they looked at a realtor

to see if there was a house similar to the one he was in.

They showed me that, like in the video,

the house for rent at the realtor was the exact same.

JUAN DOLO DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Cositorto's lawyer in Córdoba always claimed

that his client was willing to appear,

but they demanded guarantees from the DA, like the preservation of freedom,

as well as clarity regarding the charges against him.

He changed locations every three, four, five days.

He was always on the beach of Juan Dolio but in different places.

By then, we knew that the noose was tightening around Cositorto.

It was just a matter of hours until they found his whereabouts.

So Interpol took the same approach.

They watched the public Zoom he did every day

and found the same home.

Dominican Republic personnel entered early in the morning.

They told me that they caught him by surprise.

He was found with another person,

a male who was helping him rent these different locations.

He never thought that I would manage to catch him.

APRIL 4, 2022

We woke up on April 4th

and realized that Leonardo Cositorto had been arrested

in the Dominican Republic.

And our eyes went wide. "Woah, what happened?"

That's when we realized he really was a fugitive.

If Interpol arrests a person like this...

They usually only arrest criminals.

So there was more that we didn't know.

He was extradited to Argentina. We saw them bringing him in handcuffs.

He was a different man. We couldn't believe what we saw.

And that's when the scales fell from our eyes.

In the center of Villa María, in this provincial court...

DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

...Leonardo Cositorto is testifying before District Attorney Juliana Companys.

District Attorney Juliana Companys detains you.

She abuses her power,

abuses preventive detention,

and then she says she's taking you to trial

where you will get five, eight, ten years,

but if you plead guilty, if you raise your hand and accept the facts,

she'll set you free in two, three, four years.

The first time I met him, he came in furious.

He accosted me and pointed his finger at me.

I told him to respect me and put his finger down.

He must respect me, and I will respect him.

He was very angry.

He said that his fall, the fall of his company was my fault.

They sullied my name in an awful way.

They pretty much gave me a social death sentence.

I think that if I walked down the street last year, I would've been stabbed.

I didn't keep anyone's money.

Mr. Cositorto always held the position

that he was a victim of the system, not just of the economic system

but the justice system as well.

176 CHARGES OF FRAUD

Mr. Leo Cositorto... I'm sorry, Leonardo Cositorto made a statement.

He was charged with 176 counts of fraud and one of unlawful association.

- Your politics... - Excuse me.

Your politics...

Corrupt businessmen.

News outlets, bought and paid for.

Justice is the real scam in Argentina.

- Excuse me. - Those four things.

I'm one of the victims in this story.

Regarding his trading,

we realized that it was actually a demo.

There was never any real trading.

Any broker can show you a graphic representation

of what goes on in the market.

A broker profits

by making sure that those benefits represented on the screen

are available to be withdrawn.

You could say that what we were seeing in the broker

was a simulation.

- How many people do you represent? - Twenty people.

Twenty and counting, we're talking to them, supporting them.

- What are they asking of Cositorto? - They want their funds back.

How much did they invest?

I've got guys that put in 5,000, 8,000...

- One of them put in $70,000. - Dollars.

I invested $3,000 into Zoe.

That's 2,648 euros.

Both of us invested 6,000 euros each.

I invested $8,000.

For a Christmas robot, and 500 for a trust to start.

I've got colleagues who invested $200,000.

It's Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, United States,

Mexico, Guatemala.

- Spain. Germany. - From Germany?

By our calculations, of the $120 million from the total scam,

only 10% of that

was actually declared or placed within the banking system.

The rest went undeclared or to virtual wallets.

That money is also in different tax havens

where they can keep and reinvest that money with no oversight.

I think a conservative estimate,

keeping in mind all the countries they had branches in,

would be $250 million.

If someone told me it was 400, it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Mr. Cositorto considers his business to be legitimate,

and what he did to be legitimate.

And he says he can show me, although he hasn't on a judicial level,

his lawyers have not turned in anything that could make me think,

"Fine, it's true, he traded and earned this much,

or invested and earned this much." He just hasn't.

About the conclusive evidence we have against him,

he tries to refute it but runs out of arguments,

and ends up going nowhere.

A lot of people have asked me, "Why do you keep going with this?"

"Zoe has already fallen."

"No one will believe Cositorto or give him any money."

But there are a lot of similar scams out there,

so it would be good if this served as a wake-up call to get people

to pay more attention.

So that next time they're offered some miraculous investment

with impossible profits,

they can remember something called Generación Zoe

from a certain Cositorto.

After the pandemic,

there's been exponential growth in scams, particularly the virtual kind.

Exponential.

The sentences are very light, so nothing changes.

Many of them go free

despite the millions that they might've scammed.

There are no legitimate or strong sanctions

to stop them from doing it.

Within each of us,

there's the possibility of being deceived.

And there are organizations like this one,

trying to find our weak spots to reel us in.

To...

cast a line where they know we'll bite.

GAMES

ICE CREAM - JUICE

The story of Zoe was a rollercoaster.

In the beginning, it was exciting,

but I definitely felt

completely frustrated.

And there was no going back.

It was like,

I don't know, a heartbreak.

A betrayal of our trust,

our dreams, all those illusions

that made us live again.

They were gone.

I think love first turned to anger, then to hate.

First, anger at myself, "How could I fall into this scam?"

Right? I felt awful.

Then, against Leo himself.

EVERY BALL TURNED HAS A PRIZE

There was this feeling of abandonment,

desperation, anxiety, sadness.

A lot of people were scared, a lot of them were depressed.

Many people attempted suicide.

Broken families, destroyed marriages.

You had people who invested inheritances, their homes.

They didn't have anywhere to live. They had nothing at all.

COSITORTO, GIVE THE MONEY BACK

There's just no way...

ZOE SCAM - WE WANT JUSTICE

...that a person with even an ounce of humanity

could commit such merciless actions.

COSITORTO GIVE US OUR MONEY BACK

Only a sociopath would do this.

BOUWER PRISON CÓRDOBA, ARGENTINA

I don't feel responsible for what happened.

If a company is under attack, or being hurt,

what company could hold on? What company could be trustworthy?

I never thought that Zoe was a scam. I still don't think so.

I think that the system and the world played a trick on us.

And I think that

I'm paying for that trick in here.

I could apologize to the victims,

but instead, by June 2024,

if you allow me to work,

I've got a landline here.

I'm capable, it's not the first time I became a millionaire,

I was a millionaire by 24.

I'll give it all back in a year, or two, or three.

I'll simply keep moving forward.

Time goes on.

Of course, I'd love to be 35 years old.

This happened at age 53.

How long will this last? I don't know.

But I won't raise my hand

and take the blame for something I did not do.

THE ACCUSED IN THE GENERACIÓN ZOE CASE IN VILLA MARÍA,

LEONARDO COSITORTO, MAXIMILIANO BATISTA, CLAUDIO ÁLVAREZ AND SILVIA FERMANI

ARE IN PRISON AWAITING TRIAL.

ROSA MARÍA GONZÁLEZ IS ON THE RUN. LUIS YRIMIA IS IN DUBAI.

THE ZOE CASE HAS TENS OF ACCUSED ALL OVER THE WORLD.

MANY WERE PROCESSED.

MANY WORKED IN MULTI-LEVEL BUSINESSES OR CREATED THEIR OWN.

Subtitle translation by Iván Cukier