More of a hundred primary and secondary school children from Roca do not know whether or not they are going on a graduation trip this year, after the controversy over a student tourism company that sold packages to more than eleven schools and disappeared from the map.
The company “London Travel” is in the crosshairs of a crowded group of families of 7th, 5th and 6th yearsor of more than eleven primaries and secondaries of Roca, Cervantes; and will be investigated by the Public Prosecutor of Roca in the framework of a case for “alleged fraud.”
mothers and fathers They denounce that they were victims of a scam because the firm vanished from Roca, abandoned its premises in the center of the city and disappeared without notice. He has already been paid several installments of the contract for the trip of his children that would be in November. Some had already cancelled.
Now, all the lines with the company are down and meanwhile, as mothers they are in the dilemma of how to continue and feel “helpless”. They have already gone to the Prosecutor’s Office and are still trying to contact the Río Negro Ombudsman’s Office.
The commotion broke out a few days ago when one of the mothers alerted in a WhatsApp group striking data about the company that put them on alert. she got to them a note from the travel coordinator, who sold them the package, assuring that he had been separated from the company.
Faced with all this situation and after seeing that the hotel that had been contracted for the boys’ stay denied an agreement and connection with London Travel; the families decided to file a criminal complaint with the prosecutor’s office last Friday.
“There are parents who paid for the entire trip, there are parents who paid for two children at the same time for the trip and who have disbursed approximately 90,000 pesos. So the debt or the scam and the money involved is quite large”said Jimena, mother of a student from School 253 to RIO NEGRO.
Graduate trip scams: school by school
Among the victims who denounced there are boys from the School 371 of San Cayetano, the 253, 317, 169, 106 of Romagnoli, the school 57 of Cervantes, the ESRN 107, CET 17, CET 3, ESRN 43 and apparently from ESRN 9 there would be victims They do not rule out that there are more complaints in other schools in the Alto Valle.
Las primary schools paid for a trip to San Rafael Mendoza and secondary schools to Villa Carlos Paz or Brazil. In the case of the smallest, the value of the trip amounted to 75,000 pesos to San Rafael Mendoza, according to the prices agreed in 2022.
Adriana, the mother of a boy in seventh grade at Escuela 57 de Cervantes, said that last year, in June, A man named Leonardelli came to the school to sell them the package of graduates bound for Mendozato travel in November of this year.
He said that now the worst thing is the frustration and sadness of the boys. “The dreams of your children are frustrated, the great desire to go on a trip as graduates of all their classmates”, assured.
The travel company: “million dollar debt” to a hotel
“We know that this money is not going anywhere because the company has completely disappeared. The boys have no hotel to go to because I called, I contacted the hotel where our children were going to travel and they told me thatSince November of last year, they cut off all dealings with this company due to a million-dollar debt that they left them”, revealed Jimena, one of the complainants.
According to the parents, the coordinator, the visible face of the familieswould have worked in the company for more than 20 years and after publicly denouncing the victims began to receive testimonies from other parents with cases from more than a decade ago.
The travel company: complaints and rulings in Río Negro
The branch of “London Travel” was located in calle España almost Isidro Lobo and on Friday afternoon it was emptied. A group of “hired” people removed all the objects and plots of the office, which is completely dismantled, where educational trips to the Ballester dam and for fifteen-year-olds and individuals were also commissioned.
RIO NEGRO tried to contact the owner, who would be from Bahía Blanca, but he only limited himself to replying that as of today he could speak through an adviser and they would issue an official public statement.
According to media from several provinces, the company “London Travel” It would already accumulate more than 140 complaints of these characteristics throughout the country and on June 23, the Ministry of Tourism had processed the removal of the file from this agency.
According to publicly accessible information from the Río Negro Judiciary, the firm was involved in various cases and there are already more than seven final sentences between 2022 and 2023 for cases from several years ago.
One of the first rulings in Río Negro, in San Antonio Oeste (7/5/22), condemned “BIENES GYG SA” fancy name “London Travel” to pay a victim 50,000 pesos in ten days. It was resolved by the deputy justice of the peace, Federico Garriga Lacaze.
In the Civil Court No. 3 of Roca already there was an open file from August 17, 2021.