Martín Ponte, the pilot who scammed a child sick with leukemia, also asked Colapinto’s father for money

Nicanor Since Sunday he has been in Buenos Aires, happy for his adventure that resulted in getting to know the great city after a 1,800 kilometer trip from Comodoro Rivadavia with his parents and two sisters. This Monday, and after eight months of injections, He began his radiotherapy sessions at the Garrahan Hospital in Capitalwhere he stays with his family thanks to an apartment that the pilot got him Ariel Pacho. He and other members of the motorsports environment, such as Ruben Salernothey did everything possible to ensure that Nica had everything she needed. More pilots too, but they didn’t know that their money was going into their colleague’s pockets. Martin Pontewho even asked for money from Aníbal ColapintoFranco’s father.

Hour after hour, more victims are known due to the deception of someone who ran in TC Pista, Top Race and Turismo Carretera, who took advantage of the request of Eliana InsaurraldeNicanor’s mother, who began to spread a collection in which she needed to raise 2 million pesos for her son’s treatment, who for a second period in his short life suffers from type B acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Ponte forged the poster that was on the networks, replaced her bank account with his own and deleted the figure, because evidently his intention was to raise (for him) much more money. In fact, he started by asking 200,000 from 20 people, which adds up to a figure of 4,000,000.

The key to discovering the fraud appeared in a meeting of people from the nut environment in a Buenos Aires country house. Over there, Colapinto’s father and several others commented that Ponte had asked them for money for a little boy named Juan Cruz, but he had given different places of birth: Concordia and La Pampa.

Knowing the cloth, Salerno warned the rest. This is what he told the newspaper Ole: “He already had a history of having asked for money without returning it, so I warned several of them not to do it.”

It was already late. Although some did not believe him and preferred not to give him money (as Aníbal Colapinto), others had believed him and transferred him. Who is it? Manu Urcera, Fernando Chapur, Emmanuel Moriatis, Jose Ciantini, Diego Di Carlo, Camilo Echevarria, Leo Sotro, Carlos Okulovich and more…

“Who knows how many he asked, every day we find out about a different one,” Salerno confirmed.

El Tano, who ran 245 races in the TC, commented that the following Monday “I announced in a WhatsApp group that we have about 100 people, called Historic Motorsports, and several had already put in money.”

Knowing about the scam, several tried to confront Ponte, who no longer attended to them. In fact, according to Salerno, his father contacted some pilots and returned the money that his son had asked for. “Immediately, those who recovered the money, like Chapur, Di Carlo, Moriatis and several more, they sent it directly to Nicanor’s mother,” said Tano.

At the same time, and before Eliana knew about the scam, Martín Ponte contacted her to offer to help her with the collection, but setting up his own bank account, which she refused. The woman eventually found out when Salerno called her and told her the story.

The issue, although many people already knew about it, had not been made public until the current Alpine driver wrote in X: “Let’s help him, does anyone know his mother’s phone number?”. Although Franco ended up sending a message to Eliana, her financial help was no longer necessary, because Salerno’s group, Pacho y Cía, had already obtained the money. It was enough to make the issue visible and for thousands to find out and worry. Especially for Nica who, without knowing it, was the protagonist of an entire story around her while she enjoyed her first trip to Buenos Aires.