SANTO DOMINGO – Marina Marte is a Dominican woman originally from Bayona, Herrera, in the municipality of Santo Domingo Oeste. Next January, she will celebrate five years since arriving in the United States, where she came seeking a better life for herself, her two daughters with whom she lives in the Bronx, and her close circle.
She is a single mother, works caring for elderly people, and every month she has to send money for her 69-year-old mother's medication, whom she left here in the care of some nephews.
“The dream of having something in the country for when I go to rest from this foreign country where it’s just work and work,” she says, is what motivated her to reserve a unit in Bávaro Victoriana, a real estate project, for which the Public Ministry of La Romana has been in charge, whose documentation indicates that a group of people, mostly residents abroad, were allegedly defrauded by the company Novasco Real Estate SR L, according to the complaint.
Marte told El Inmobiliario that she paid US$16,100 for a project scheduled to begin in July of this year, but to this day there is no sign of any construction. “The project was scheduled to start in July 2024, and to this day they haven't started it. They aren't giving us any information about the project, they closed their offices, they had a project in Romana with the final stage to be delivered in March 2024, and the land isn't even in her name. They haven't done any earthmoving.”.
The alleged victim refers to Loanyl Lismeiry Ortiz Nova, who is listed among the defendants, along with Yves Alexandre Giroux, Rocío del Carmen Rodríguez de Moya, Marisol Nova Nolasco, and several commercial companies, including Novasco Real Estate SRL.
Carolina Núñez, the lawyer representing 38 victims, highlighted that the amount involved among the plaintiffs through her office is approximately US$500,000. “The company that allegedly developed the project is known as Novasco Real Estate, a shell company. It was only incorporated in 2021, and eight months later it was already being promoted as a major project developer,” she explained.
Attorney Carolina Núñez. (EXTERNAL SOURCE).
Julia Antonopoulos bought an apartment in Romana Victoriana and, according to her, made her first payment on April 28, 2022, subsequently depositing various payments totaling US$26,727 into the Novasco Real Estate SRL account. “The apartment I chose was a penthouse, H406, with a total cost of US$77,500 and was supposed to be delivered in March 2023,” she said.
“It turns out that the company promoted several projects claiming to own the land, and then over time we realized it was a lie. They were never the owners of those lands where they were promoting the project, and they collected large sums of money from us, the victims,” said one of the victims, who prefers to remain anonymous.
The lawsuit
Attorney Carolina Núñez stated that the buyers began to suspect something was amiss when the construction and delivery dates for the first phase arrived. “They realized that no project had ever been started, that they didn't own any of the land, and that they had never applied for permits. Then, shortly afterward, the offices closed, and they abandoned everything related to the project. In other words, it turned out to be a complete scam,” the attorney explained.
The document, filed with the District Attorney's Office of La Romana Judicial District, is 50 pages long and was submitted on October 11 of this year. Magistrate Bienvenido Florentino has been appointed to handle the case.
Plaintiffs
According to the document submitted to the Public Prosecutor's Office, the plaintiffs include Andreina Santana, Isadora Martínez, José Javier González, Juan Carlos Solino, Yahaira Alvarado, Demetrios Antonopoulus, Julia Antonopoulus, Manuel Enrique Frisman, Sandra Durr, Patricia del Carmen Ramírez, among others.
Cover photo: Bávaro Victoriana rendering promoted by Novasco Real Estate on the CRM easybroker.com
