Spain: Condemned the perpetrators of the pyramid scam 700 Jehovah's Witnesses

by JHK 13 Replies latest watchtower scandals

  • Hecce
    Hecce

    Sentence is final 3/7/17, Google translation

    The Supreme Court has confirmed the sentences of between three years and three and a half years of imprisonment for the four people responsible for a pyramid scheme that amounted to 39 million euros and affected more than 1,300 people throughout Spain, hundreds of them belonging to The Jehovah's Witnesses. The deception occurred between 1998 and 2002 through Rural New Life, SL, and Mutua Mas Vida, the latter an entity that was committed to guarantee non-invasive healthcare, which excluded blood transfusions in surgical interventions, vetoed in This religion, hence there are hundreds of affected Jehovah's Witnesses.

    Juan Andrés Torrecillas Martínez, one of the founding partners of Rural New Life and former president of Mutua Mas Vida, and Diego Luna Sánchez, delegate of both entities in the Catalunya area, who took advantage of his position Of "elder" (a kind of pastor) in the Witnesses to convince hundreds of parishioners to sign investment contracts and insurance policies. Two sisters, María Mercedes and María Nieves Torres Salado, the first legal director of the two entities, and the second foundress and former secretary of the Council of Mutua Mas Vida, have been sentenced to three years in prison. The two were also designated executors executors of the founder and first president of Rural New Life, already deceased.

    The judgment of the Supreme Court confirms that issued by the Barcelona Provincial Court on January 29, 2015, which condemned the four defendants for a continuing felony offense (with aggravated misconduct and to the detriment of notoriously important), in competition With an offense of insolvency punishable.

    The Supreme Court has only partially estimated the appeal of the two women and has acquitted them for the crime of punishable insolvency.

    According to the proven facts of the Audiencia de Barcelona, ​​the purpose of Rural New Life, based in Seville, was to attract private investors through a commercial network distributed throughout Spain to invest in the real estate and stock market and Buy stakes in other companies. "However, the aforementioned accused decided - jointly and induced the spirit of unjust enrichment - to offer from 1999 as a decoy to future investors loan agreements (under the name Investment Plan and Plan Ahorro, henceforth PIN And PAN) in which a guaranteed return of between 10 and 13% was recorded, despite being fully aware that the capital would not be invested in any specific good that would produce such high dividends, "concluded the judges of Barcelona. "Conscious that only with the entrance of new capitals (pyramid) could they meet the obligations contracted, they established a network of branches (12 in all Spain)", to which they sent leaflets of propaganda where those interests were promised to Zero risk.

    At the end of 1998, when many of the investors belonged to the Jehovah's Witnesses religious congregation, as a result of the fact that the majority of zone delegates were members of the zone and they offered the products PIN and PAN to the parishioners of their community , The first president of Rural New Wife (now deceased), another partner who is now in an unknown location, and Torrecillas, decided to expand and complete the fraudulent pyramid structure by founding Mutua MAS VIDA, an entity of an apparently caregiving nature that would serve to That the same investors already raised by Rural New Life SL, decided to acquire also shares as mutualists, in exchange for guaranteeing not only non-invasive health care that excluded any possibility of blood transfusions in surgical interventions, clinical treatment that prohibits said Religion, but also high interests of their economic contributions.

    "In this way, thanks to the" blind faith "of the subscribers, the result was the sharing of the same religious ideal based on the immorality of every lie, which at the beginning of 2001 between the two entities already had almost 3,000 participants between investors and insured" , Indicates the sentence.

    The Insurance Compensation Consortium entered into an agreement with 1,312 policyholders of Mutua Mas Vida for the acquisition and subrogation of 89.31% of each security or participation, worth 11 million euros. But the Consortium did not take over the corresponding credits from the Rural New Life mercantile, since it was a private company with a profit motive, and still had pending collection by the investors 27.9 million euros.

    http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2017/03/07/actualidad/1488888795_002254.html

  • darkspilver
    darkspilver

    Cool, thanks for the post from El Pais - I listed the result yesterday in the MEGA THREAD here when the result was first filtering through to the online newspapers.

    I did also link to this thread for 'background' though

  • dozy
    dozy

    It's sad that so many JWs lost money to this scam. As others have said - JWs seem particularly vulnerable to "get rich quick" or "herbal" / alternative medicine style scams , especially when promoted by prominent ones in the Org.

  • sp74bb
    sp74bb

    Too many in Spain had fallen on this trap. Thanks for the justice.

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