Lugano. June 4, 2022. A man in his fifties in a blue suit, cufflinks, thick black tail, loafers (one green, the other red), negotiates the purchase of a luxury watch in the Tourbillon boutique. Maybe a Rolex or a Harry Winston. He gets a call, goes out without buying the watch.
He is Mauro Rizzato, 55, one of the three co-founders of New Financial Technology. Company of Silea, Treviso, it is feared that it has made 100 million disappear after having convinced about six thousand Italian investors that they have algorithms capable of making them earn a lot of money through cryptocurrencies. On the other side of the phone, in the video, Christian Visentin, 45, another of the founders of the company. Today he is in Dubai. Maybe the money is in Dubai too. And it is from Dubai that Visentin during the video calls Rizzato who, out of breath, leaves the shop to rush to a meeting.
Alleged cryptocurrency scam. Here is the disappeared video with which they tried to lure customers
New Financial Technology: the logo in Lugano, offices in Dubai
The scene described is part of the launch video of the New Financial Technology. Many have searched for it online these days because it was the only audiovisual testimony in which the entire management of the company could be seen. It was removed for weeks, then it reappeared, published by Mattino di Padova. In the video, Rizzato can be seen walking through the streets of Lugano, until he reaches the NFT offices, with the company logo standing out on a mirrored building. Sources tell Italian Tech that that logo has never been hoisted. Which would be a photomontage because there has always been a ‘for rent’ sign there. However, today that logo is not there, but there is the ‘rent’ sign.
But it is only one of the many curious aspects of this story, plastically represented in this video. If the story wasn’t about the hypothesis that thousands of people’s money went up in smoke, the video could be seen as an unwitting masterpiece of comedy. Perhaps it is precisely the hypothesis that a gigantic Ponzi scheme may be hiding behind their investment company that makes everything so unreal.
The case
The Nft case of Silea widens. Savers: “Scammed with Bitcoin”. A 100 million hole is feared
by Arcangelo Rociola
New Financial Technology started operating a year ago. He had announced the launch of an algorithm capable of trading cryptocurrencies on different platforms. In technical jargon, he was refereeing. It promised (and for a while it also gave) returns of 10% per month with a minimum investment of 10 thousand euros. A thousand euros a month, an unthinkable coupon for any type of investment.
The company is estimated to have convinced around six thousand people to invest in those algorithms. It is feared that together with the founders about 100 million euros have disappeared. Because the accounts have been blocked since the end of July, just as the investment portfolios of customers are no longer accessible.
Bitcoin and Ponzi scheme. How the alleged scam worked
More than a cryptocurrency scam, a Ponzi scheme. Charles Ponzi (1882-1949) Italian by birth, American by adoption, he was an artist, but also the inventor of one of the most sophisticated and long-lived scams in the history of finance. Ponzi took the money and said to invest it. He guaranteed high returns on the investment. But instead of investing the money, he gave coupons to his investors from the paid-in capital.
This increases the number of investors, attracted by word of mouth and by the possibility of having fixed and certain returns. Then the pattern gets too big. Unsustainable. And it bursts. It turns out that behind those returns there were no investments but only the money of other customers, dazzled by the easy earnings.
If, as it is accused by its clients, it were the same scheme adopted by New Financial Technology, it is possible that the company has never bought a bitcoin. Rizzato, Vicentin and associates on the other hand do not have the face of computer experts.
The case
New Financial Technology case, the CEO speaks: “The money? I don’t know where I am, but I reject the accusations”
by Arcangelo Rociola
The grim look, the uncertain Italian
Rizzato presents the Nft product with a grim look and an uncertain Italian, marked by a Venetian accent that betrays more embarrassment than authenticity of a provincial code developer. Visentin speaks from Dubai and shows up in an office where a picture with the Bitcoin B logo appears behind him.
Also appears in the presentation Guido Giuseppe PascottoCFO of Bcademy (a well-known company in the Lugano crypto environment, it is not known if and in what way it is involved in the affair or what links it has with the NFT), which presents the project by saying that “bitcoin remains our main focus ”, but they open up to other cryptocurrencies, one created especially for the company’s customers, a tool created“ to participate in this truly crazy ecosystem that is NFT, ”says Pascotto, stumbling.
New Fianancial Technlogy: 500 complaints, little chance of getting the money back
The local Venetian press reports about 500 complaints received so far through local consumer associations. The scammed could be six thousand. Yesterday one of the three managers of the company, the lawyer Emanuele Giullini (which appears in the video), he has decided to give us an interview in which he says he does not know where the money is, and that he is making sure that Visentin has not done anything wrong. But there is no trace of the money. It is not even known if they have ever been used to buy cryptocurrencies.
He continues to have Zoom calls with his clients promising that every penny of the paid-up capital will be returned. Many hope so. But resignation reigns in the faces of the people attending those Zoom meetings.
