Targeted influencers and financial education: the official strategy to prevent pyramid scams

the scams pyramid schemes and fraud is the order of the day in this post-pandemic period. In Government they began to design a set of strategies to move forward in awareness of risks involved in investments that offer high returns and try to avoid cheating.

Ang National Value Commission, the body that regulates the capital market, this issue on the agenda for several months. “We remain concerned about investment schemes already they offer people an impossible income in a very short time, with high -risk assets, and, especially, the companions additional payments for attracting more customers”, Said its vice president Sebastián Negri.

The main focus of the organization’s concern is to prevent the spread of “unregulated investments” through social media campaigns.

theAggressive advertising campaigns of a group of recently created companies, even users public figuresencouraging investment with the promise of incredible income, is one of the axes exposed in front of the political and social referents of various provinces.

At this point, CNV’s deputy manager of Investor Protection and Financial Education, Ricardo Lazzari, added that the fraudulent offer “they become more complex with a series of many challenging elements beyond reasonable calculation of yield comparisons of different investments; appeals to biases and irrational, emotional, underlying elements to investors when deciding on an investment ”.

The official noted the ongoing joint work with various agencies and the Judiciary, and added that “we have made very positive progress in coordination with the various actors involved in the activities of the prevention and research of these types of schemes. It is also important to work on financial education ”.

What is the pyramid scheme

Although not new to the concept, it has become “fashionable” in recent months. The most impressive case is the in Adhemar Capital, a finance company from Catamarca and Generation Zoewhich ended with the arrest of its most visible figure, Leonardo Cositorto.

These and other variants, in the views of regulators, have several aspects in common: they offer returns more than any other economic asset and ensure that the returns are that is supported by digital investments, of which the general public is not very aware. In addition, they share the mottos of “Be your own boss” or “Achieve financial freedom”Among others.

Other features: they ask for “investors” or “users” already add more people to the projectthanks to a referral system, which promises to increase revenue.

This last aspect is the main alert of a pyramid scheme, a type of crime permitted by articles 309 and 310 of the Argentine Penal Code. Typically, these types of organizations requires that the number of new participants be greater than the number of existing ones; That is why it was given the name of pyramid.

These are considered scams, as they can only be maintained as long as there are enough new entrants. When the population of potential participants becomes saturated, the benefits of the original participants decrease and most participants had no benefit after funding the revenues of the former.

NE