On Wednesday, citizens reported Aleaty, a company allegedly running a pyramid scam that promised monthly earnings ranging from 125 to 190,800 pesos. One affected individual, Adrián de la Cruz, explained that Aleaty’s activities involved promoting web pages and social media accounts on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. The company is registered with the National Intellectual Property Office (Onapi) as a web technology consulting and advisory services provider. However, there is no online evidence of the company’s existence on social media.
De la Cruz further explained that the company paid people to watch videos and required a membership fee to receive payments. The amount of money invested in the VIP level determined the monthly returns based on the number of “daily tasks” given to users. The VIP levels ranged from 0 to 6 with purchase prices from 0 to 180,000 pesos. The monthly benefits ranged from 125 to 190,800 pesos and up to 2,289,600 pesos per year.
María Rodríguez from Santiago was another affected person who found out about the platform through a relative. She reported that the Aleaty portal stopped working around 11:00 p.m. on Tuesday, leaving users without access to their funds. Despite holding events in Santo Domingo, the platform administrators removed both the platform and the app on Tuesday, leaving users stranded.
One of the alleged scammers responded to a message on WhatsApp, stating that the company was working to relaunch the application, and urged users to be patient. Diario Libre accessed the Aleaty portal, which displayed a message informing users that the product needs to be relaunched on Google Play due to a system update and that it may take some time for approval.
Despite losing only approximately 19,000 pesos after being on the platform for a month and a half, Rodríguez expressed her sorrow for people who invested up to a million pesos and lost everything. She reported that some members had been blocked from WhatsApp groups by the administrators. On Tuesday evening, an administrator sent a message with ID photos of different people, indicating that they were the ones who stole the money. Still, the information they sent seemed to be bank accounts that the company had purchased to make transfers.