The Uruguayan technology dLocal, dedicated to processing digital payments, suffered this Friday a 17.3% drop in the values of its shares on Wall Street due to the impact of an investigation by the Argentine Government for alleged fraud.
The papers of the fintech (digital finance company) fell to settle at US$ 11.41 after learning that the Federal Administration of Public Revenues (Afip) evaluates presenting before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the entity that regulates the capital market in the United States, a complaint for the alleged leakage of at least US$ 400 million, according to the Buenos Aires newspaper infobae.
Official Argentine sources assured this outlet that the services offered by the fintech Uruguayan are “a mere instrument to take advantage of the exchange rate gap and take dollars abroad with operations that are not reflected in the accounting.”
In this regard, from the Afip they let it be known that they demanded the relevant documentation. In addition, Customs is working to file a complaint with the SEC and obtain information on the destination of the funds through the US Treasury and Homeland Security Investigations (the investigation office of the Department of Homeland Security, which investigates the transit of people and capital).
In this way, dLocal receives a new blow in the stock market. In November of last year, its shares fell more than 51% after the consulting firm Muddy Waters Capital released a report on the finances of the first unicorn (as companies that, in a relatively short time, are known in technological jargon, exceed the market value of one billion dollars) of the neighboring country.
The consultant reported in that report “repeated failures in its third-party verification and its collection accounts are flatly contradictory.”
The Uruguayan response
In dialogue with the specialized agency Bloomberg, dLocal assured that these are “misleading accusations” and they rule out having removed dollars from Argentina irregularly.
In this framework, the Uruguayan company warned that it is not aware of any investigation by the Argentine tax authorities, while they were surprised at the scope that this complaint took on a global level.
In this regard, Sergio Fogel, one of the co-founders, said that the company complies with all regulations. “We are a company listed on the United States Stock Exchange, audited, looked at even under a microscope. We always act according to the regulation, we always have.”
In addition, he stressed that for now he has not received any special request from the Afip, to which the Uruguayan businessman added: “We do not know of any open cause, nothing that exceeds the current requests we receive.”
Regarding its operation, Fogel clarified that dLocal transfers currency to Malta and other international destinations in which the subsidiaries are based and that it is nothing more than the intermediation process.
The fintech dLocal was founded in 2016. The balance for the first quarter of the year showed a volume of payments processed of US$ 3.6 billion, with a year-on-year growth of 57%, as well as revenues of US$ 137 million, 16% more than in the same period of 2022. It has more than 500 employees, of which 10% are in Argentina.
In Córdoba, the Uruguayan company recruited several of the employees that McAfee left when it opened its offices in this city.
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