The procedure was conducted in La Castellana, in the metropolitan area of Caracas. Shasta had suspended its operations due to measures from the banking regulator.
The Spanish tech developer and entrepreneur, Alex Sicart Ramos, got detained in the Caracas metropolitan sector, in Venezuela, by officials of the Scientific and Judicial Police (CICPC for its initials in Spanish).
The 22-year-old technologic professional and founder of the app for sending remittances, Shasta, received various accusations that include fraud, money laundering, and criminal association.
The information came from Commissioner Douglas Rico, national director of the police force, who highlighted that Sicart got arrested in August in the La Castellana urbanization, Chacao municipality, Miranda State. The case is under the magnifying glass of the 26th Court of the Public Ministry.
Rico explained the legal actions the police applied during the police deployment. The authorities unveiled a Jeep brand vehicle, Cherokee Sport model (AE659JM plates), a computer, and one cell phone. It is unclear whether these assets were seized and placed at the order of the prosecution.
Currently, the Shasta application is not operational due to administrative actions from the Superintendency of Institutions of the Banking Sector (Sudeban for its initials in Spanish). The Venezuelan regulatory entity issued, in early August, the procedure for 30 days due to irregularities in the administration of access to the platform.
The procedure led by the CICPC and the accusations against Sicart might not be related to the Sudeban investigation. After 30 days of the administrative action, the application remains shut down. Right after acceding the Shasta website, the following message appears on the screen.
Legal Procedures against Sicart in Spain and Venezuela
The procedure against Sicart in Venezuela adheres to the one followed in Spain for revealing secrets, going against intellectual property, the market, and the customers.
In Europe, a group of former employees of the CryptoSolarTech project highlighted that they revealed the startup’s open-source code before leaving the project.
On the other hand, Sicart refuted the allegations and assured that nothing in the lawsuit was true. The developer clarified that his project with Shasta had no relationship with CryptoSolarTech.
CryptoSolarTech is an initiative to set the mining of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies by using solar energy as a source to empower mining devices.
Sicart acquired more relevance in the technological world because of his inclusion by Forbes magazine as one of the great promises with less than 30 years of age. In addition, the newspaper El País described the developer as the “child prodigy” of technology.
After the developer arrived in Venezuela, he encouraged his proposal with Shasta as an app for sending and receiving remittances and as a means of payment in dollars or euros.
The application received the complete approval of the banking regulator in 2020. The software remained active for about a year before stopping its operations due to the administrative measure imposed. Sudeban reported that users with healthy balances could withdraw their funds.
By: Jenson Nuñez
