Pending the outcome of a criminal investigation, Generation Zoe’s Leonardo Cositorto is being held in Bouwer Prison.
From cockroaches to the food, Cositortia isn’t having a great time.
Bouwer Prison is a significant change of scenery for Cositorto who, prior to his arrest, enjoyed luxury hotels and resorts.
Speaking with CNN Radio Cositorto (right), moaned about having to kill ten cockroaches a day in his cell.
There is nothing that is not shameful here, from the food to the insecticides for cockroaches.
People sleep in pairs on mattresses, sleep under the beds, there are no bathrooms here.
We pee in a drum, I have pooped on top of a cardboard, They don’t give you toilet paper even for 5 days, and on top of that, if you say something, they put a sanction on you.
Despite running a very obvious Ponzi scheme, Cositorto maintains the legal system that eventually caught up with him full of “corruption, extortion and manipulation”.
Cositorto doesn’t acknowledge Generation Zoe was a Ponzi scheme and maintains his innocence.
A day after Cositorto’s radio interview, iProfessional published transcripts of leaked conversations between Generation Zoe insiders.
The conversations mostly pertain to invest into Generation Zoe and withdrawal problems.
One particularly interesting conversation, between Norman Prospero and a business partner, suggests Cositorto was making selective payments after Generation Zoe collapsed;
NORMAN: Cositorto cut off everyone’s groceries , so they call the professionals to see if there is a professional who tells them “look guys, this is over, it exploded, it’s no longer useful, such a thing, such another” …
COUPLE: In what way did you cut off his groceries?
NORMAN : There isn’t a sope for them, there’s only money to pay the interest issue by escrow.
COUPLE: And what did they charge?
NORMAN: And they came and told him ” che Leo, I have to spend 50,000 pesos on this, 1,000,000 on this, 3,000,000 on this”, and Leo gave them.
COUPLE: In things for the company?
NORMAN: Supposedly in things for the company. And there is one that used to have a 308 and now has a Mercedes 300.
Generation Zoe investors who fled after the Ponzi collapsed were referred to as “rats”.
Here’s one particularly colorful exchange by Prospero, discussing Cositorto rebooting the Ponzi with money he didn’t have.
NORMAN: There is an audio of Leo , there in the administration group that says: “guys we have to hold the stop until the weekend… I finish selling the metaverses…”.
GUSTAVO: (Laughs) This guy has been saying bank the stop, this week, the next, the next…
NORMAN : And the son of a bitch is going to pull the 40 sticks out of the ground . And I’ll tell you something, I’m going to sit down with him… I’m going to tell him “look, you don’t pay a penny for this and from now on all these fucking people who invested, yes… you’re going to sit down and negotiate with everyone, one for one.
And you’re going to tell him and I’ll give you the twine like this, like this and like that; and I’m going to give you this and this; and the new conditions are going to be this; and I can’t pay you more than 7.5 a month; and you shove it up your ass … ”
This is the new format of negotiation and assembly, and that’s it. And if you like it, you like it and if you don’t like it, let me know…
GUSTAVO: And Zoe Cash? There is no more talk of Zoe Cash…
NORMAN: 0.8 cents.
GUSTAVO: Ah well, if you have it, change it now, because…
NORMAN: No, you know I never had Zoe Cash. I never knew how to buy Zoe Cash, that’s why I don’t have one.
GUSTAVO: Why do you want to buy that cock…
That Prospero didn’t buy into Zoe Cash and was only interested in stealing actual money is telling.
Presumably these recordings are now part of the ongoing Generation Zoe investigation.
Earlier this month Cositorto’s ex-wife, presumably a primary beneficiary of the Ponzi scheme, vowed to reboot Generation Zoe.
Laura Schwindt (right) held a series of Zoom webinars earlier this month.
Addressing Generation Zoe victims in Peru, Schwindt told them she intended to launch Generation Zoe 2.0.
When all these situations occurred, I stood up to accompany and carry the load, to put it in some way. To carry the company forward.
Schwindt went on to falsely claim criminal charges against Cositorto had been dropped. She then “ranted” against whistleblowers on Twitter, the media and Public Prosecutors.
Working with his legal team, Schwindt hopes to secure Cositorto’s release so he can “run the business again”.
Cositorto’s Generation Zoe criminal case involves over sixty consumer fraud complaints.