Territorial Bank and Coopera are being investigated over exports to Venezuela

As reported by the Superintendence of Banking and Insurance (SBS), the closure of the Territorial Bank and the Coopera Savings and Credit Cooperative, have irregular links through Guayaquil companies Multiregi, Multisun, Ibicampus and Lemantec, of which the three first ones, exported products to Venezuela through the unified regional compensation system, SUCRE.

The reports reveal that in January, February and May of 2013 Multisun, Multiregi and Ibicampus, exported chemicals to Venezuela for more than $ 23 million through the Sucre system, but then they presented irregularities in the addresses used and are also questioned by not submitting their 2012 balance sheets to the SBS.

In the Coopera case, the Superintendence of Popular and Solidarity Economy (SEPS) revealed that ten companies received transfers in their accounts from that cooperative for $ 31 million in the first half of 2013 and described these operations as “unusual and unjustified”. The Prosecutor’s Office of Azuay expanded the list to twelve companies, including Lemantec.

One of the most striking irregularities is that each of these four mentioned companies opened a Coopera account in the same date, April 18, a month after the closure of the Territorial Bank, with amounts of less than $ 250 per account. But in less than two months, they jointly managed to reach $ 13.1 million in deposits.

As for the irregularity in the Territorial Bank, the SBS discovered that Multiregi and Multisun transferred $ 4.3 million to eight companies, including Ibicampus and Lemantec, to later deposit the money in the account of the principal shareholder of the Territorial bank, Pietro Zunino, who used these resources to capitalize the bank. Zunino currently has a detention warrant, but he is out of the country.

Coopera members went to the Ombudsman to ask help in the process of getting their savings back.