Tether executives are reportedly spending large amounts of money on luxurious El Salvador real estate and becoming El Salvadorian citizens.
That’s according to local news outlet El Faro, which collected the deeds of properties being bought up by the company’s Chief Financial Officer Giancarlo Devasini, Chief Exec Paolo Ardoino, and Chief Operating Officer Claudia Lagorio.
On July 31, 2024, Ardoino and Lagorio reportedly bought two plots of land worth a total of $1.7 million in a luxury golf resort called the Condominio Villanueva Golf Country Club that doubles up as a residential area called El Encanto. Property deeds revealed Ardoino and Lagorio are also naturalized Salvadorian citizens.
In 2014, the Deputy Attorney of the Human Rights Ombudsman Office in El Salvador, Yanira Cortez, said that projects like this required an increase in water supply despite nearby El Encanto communities suffering severe water shortages.
The golf course in 2014 (Sourced from Wikimedia Commons) before the installation of luxury properties.
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Devasini and Bitcoin-focused artist Valentina Picozz bought a $2 million house on Tecana Street in San Salvador, with each owning 50% of the property. Picozz is listed as Salvadorian, while Devasini is listed as Italian.
Devasini also reportedly owns 15 companies in El Salvador and registered 11 of them under the same office in the San Salvador World Trade Center between February and June last year. Some of these firms, such as Inversiones Odomin, GCH Hospitality, and GSV Hospitality, are reportedly buying real estate in the center of San Salvador.
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Bitfinex, a crypto exchange that shares the same parent company with Tether, recently moved its derivatives services to El Salvador. Ardoino is the CTO of Bitfinex Securities and El Salvador has relied on Bitfinex to supply its government holding of BTC.
Tether also hired a lobbying firm owned by a major advisor to Bukele to help strengthen US relations through meetups with Republicans and influential Donald Trump supporters.
El Faro’s report also detailed the rising land prices in El Zonte, otherwise known as “Bitcoin Beach,” as Bitcoiners buy up land. It found that in the three years since El Salvador’s BTC law was passed in 2021, land prices have risen by over 130%.
