The Colombian company that was known as Apuestas Ochoa, after 29 years officially changed its identity to Facilísimo and its corporate name by Red de Servicios del Quindío SA in May of 2018, but due to a procedural error they attached an alleged embezzlement against the department of Quindío.
Everything started in 2013 when an audit was carried out by the National Health Superintendence, through a consulting firm (BDO-GPYO), an audit in which the result was drawn up without any finding, novelty or observation. However, the Superintendence received the report of the procedure in which mention a possible embezzlement for $ 40 billion.
"By comparative analysis in the income recorded in the accounting, $ 46,927,771,681 were added in the month of December 2013 and when verifying what was declared as an income tax advance for equity CR, amounting to $ 5,087,148,000, a difference of $ 41,840,623,681, of which there is no validity or clarity of the transaction or transaction that originated it, so it is necessary that the administration clearly justify said departure, it is important to mention that the clarity of this item is necessary since , if there is a tax visit and when generating the various crossings between VAT, Income and Equity tax, they could incur a penalty, which must be reported to the tax authority" the report says.
However, at the time the representative of the legal department of Ochos Apuestas said that during the audit of that year different elements were validated as human capital, financial, debt capacity, among others and finally a record was drawn up in which BDO stated that there was no finding.
"Surprisingly, we learned that the auditor delivered to the Superintendence a report with more than 17 findings, including an alleged embezzlement of $ 40,000 million COP. Once the process was validated, it was possible to identify that one of the officers of the audit team did the operation badly, it was evidenced that it added twice the amount, establishing that we had an alleged embezzlement. The Superintendence, within its control and surveillance tasks, referred the investigation to the other entities, "said Luis Alfonso Martínez Martínez, legal representative of the company, at the time.
In addition, the DIAN also advanced investigative processes in 2014 where they concluded that "it is clear that the difference reported in the forensic audit is not correct, since the value of the income was compared to November 30, 2013, that is to say the accumulated of the year. Against the income of the month of December of the monthly declaration of retention in the source of the Cree of the month of December 2013 "
With these results, in November 2017 the Superintendence declared the expiration of the sanctioning faculty and ordered the file in the administrative action advanced against Apuestas Ochoa.
But on May 31 of this year, 4 years later the office of the third section, through an office in which he requested the company some documents to be delivered within a maximum period of 10 working days that expired on June 22.
To which Martinez replied "There is no such embezzlement, we have the evidence that it is a purely operational error and today we must give peace of mind to the public that Ochosa Bets fully complies with its obligations. We have 10 business days to respond, which we will try to do in the shortest possible time. I understand the dynamics that the public prosecutor must advance, that will endorse the information given by us and finally determine if the investigation is initiated or not. "
Finally, the third sectional prosecutor's office after starting the investigative protocol against these facts acknowledged that the reported tax evasion was never filed, in the same way the Comptroller General of Quindío processed the complaint for alleged irregularities within the Quindío Lottery, bets permanent, concluding that no evidence was found, affecting the transfers or income of the department of Quindío.
Being able to demonstrate that the result that was thrown in the report delivered to the Superintendence was a procedural error committed by one of the accountants of the audit.
To conclude, Martinez pointed out that they are one of the most watched entities in the lucky and chance games industry, and that an evasion of such magnitude would be impossible.
"The Quindío lottery controls us, the Health Department audits us in the exploitation rights payments, we are controlled by the National Council of Luck and Chance Games, Coljuegos, through the Ministry of Finance, and finally the National Superintendence. of health. So, it is factually impossible that there is an embezzlement of this nature, when we had been working in the best way and with transparency "
