The filming of the documentary about Cositorto and Zoe Generation for Netflix began

“The series and the movie of our history are coming. Create a community of one million to 10 million people. We are going to venture into the economic and political spheres. It doesn’t matter how long you’re going to keep me in custody, you’re free. Don’t let dreams be mutilated by empty tweeters. Let’s think big.”

The speech belongs to Leonardo Cositorto who, from the jail where he is in preventive detention, sent an audio a little over a week ago to the followers that he still has. That film with the official version of his life and the actions in the successive structures mounted on presumed virtual currencies is delayed –according to his lawyer, Miguel Ángel Pierri– or it will not come true. This last alternative is the version that reached this medium: the project fell definitively.

On the other hand, there are two other audiovisual initiatives that are taking shape. On the one hand, yeah filming began for a local production company for the Netflix platform. It will be a documentary film. Cositorto has produced thousands of videos with conferences, dissertations, messages and meetings. There are also film documents of his tracking by Interpol and his capture in the Dominican Republic. The script work began months ago with a gigantic drawing on a blackboard with the dozens of protagonists who have him at the head of a large organization along with Maximiliano Batista, his second in command. It is a complex drawing with different branches because that is what Generation Zoe is all about: an alleged pyramid or Ponzi scam structure that stretched out tentacles to soccer clubs, gastronomic venues, construction and trading companies. Everything, starting with a highly persuasive coaching speech.

The producer is very jealous with the information it handles. This medium tried to establish contacts to have more information about the duration and possible release date, among other details, but they preferred to keep them in reserve. What could be confirmed was the conduct of interviews and some locations: one was the city of Villa María, where the Investigative Prosecutor’s Office is located, which initiated the criminal investigations. Indeed, the arrest of Leonardo Cositorto and two dozen more people linked to Zoe, were ordered by its owner, Juliana Companys.

It also transpired that the producer in charge of the project decided to address the Cositorto phenomenon by placing the axis on the victims of the investigated maneuvers. There are hundreds of scams that jumped in Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Santa Fe and the north of the country, as far as the publicity of the investments offered by Generación Zoe had reached. In the world, Ponzi or pyramid style scams have become news: investments in dollars with high yields that were maintained by the simple logic of adding new clients/followers. Once they were out in the open, they went down like a tower of cards. Hence the interest in this type of plots that become audiovisual products with great possibility of insertion and sale in numerous countries due to the globalization of the phenomenon.

vice ready. The other realization is finished but still does not have a release date. It is the one faced by the British content generator Vice. In Argentina, freelance producers intervened, specially hired for the job. Vice made a docuseries with several chapters under the title ‘Cowboy Kings of Crypto’ that addresses fraud and failures of cryptocurrencies, based on different cases. Among them, an episode narrates the Argentine case, one of the most resonant: that of Zoe, Cositorto and his team, now on the ropes due to the action of Justice.

What will happen to Paramount+? Miguel Ángel Pierri, defender of Leonardo Cositorto, announced months ago that the official story of his client’s life and business was coming, told in a series. Zoe’s leader maintains that the empire she had created is not a scam and that she went bankrupt due to the malicious actions of “empty tweeters”, as he defined them in a message that his followers reproduced days ago. For this, Pierri had contacted, according to what he told this medium, Paramount +. “Yesterday they confirmed to me from Los Angeles that everything is in full swing, they are finishing two projects and then Zoe comes,” he responded to the CÓRDOBA PROFILE query. However, there are strong versions that indicate that it is a project that fell completely.

LEGAL CASE

Next month will be one year since the Zoe case broke out in the provincial Justice, more specifically in Villa María. The crimes that are saddled with the 29 defendants, with different responsibilities depending on the role they would have fulfilled in the organization, are repeated frauds and illicit association.

The calculation of the prosecutor, Juliana Companys, is that the victims would exceed a thousand people, but only 176 presented themselves as victims. In general, these types of scams tend to channel money in the dark, so therein lies one of the difficulties in detecting victims.

The investigation is very advanced, according to the prosecutor’s own admission. She also assured that she has evidence to determine the criminal responsibility of each of the accused. Several of them continue to be detained and the Justice confirmed their preventive detention.

There are also fugitives, with an international arrest warrant, such as the case of former judge Héctor Yrimia, who would reside in the United Arab Emirates. In the coming months, it is possible that the main part of the investigation will be closed and it will be elevated to trial.