Legal Act on Konex Award

CASE 45-2018: Mercado Pago & Marcos Galperin

Legal Act on Konex Award

Dear Konex Foundation, on October 17, 2018, the International Buddhist Ethics Committee, hereby, is communicating in order to make an international repudiation with regards to the Konex Platinum 2018 Award given to Marcos Galperín. This repudiation is due to the fact that Marcos Galperín and his company, Mercado Pago, have been sentenced by the Ethics Committee as Responsible for committing crimes of Scam and Corruption, which arose after having analyzed the way how fraudulent acts against a Buddhist Temple were carried out by this businessman and his company, and also because of the way in which he associated himself with the government of President Macri to defraud the State and thus avoiding to pay multimillion-dollar taxes.

Because in recent days Mercado Pago company has illegally retained economic funds ($ 1200) from the same Buddhist Temple to which it had previously cheated, this systematic behavior shows that the company is rather an Illicit Association, which during the Argentine economic crisis it seems to have started a process of collecting money by illegal means in order not to have economic losses in their corporate balance sheets. The procedure is obviously clever: illegally collecting small funds from hundreds of thousands of clients, most of whom will not initiate legal measures not only for the amount of money but also because the Argentine justice guarantees the impunity of those rich and powerful.

In conclusion, after receiving this international repudiation, the Konex Foundation should begin a process of investigation of Marcos Galperín's criminal behavior, canceling the award given to whom, despite boasting to be an innovative entrepreneur, would not be more than an unscrupulous businessman.

Always with spirit of reconciliation,

Maestro Maitreya Samyaksambuddha

President of the International Buddhist Ethics Committee and Buddhist Tribunal on Human Rights