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  • BULLETIN: Florida — Again: Multiagency Probe Leads To Federal Criminal Charges Against 9 People In Interconnected Ponzi And Fraud Schemes

    BULLETIN: An investigation by the U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Miami Police Department has led to criminal charges against nine defendants in three Florida fraud schemes that allegedly were interconnected.

    Seven of the defendants were indicted. Two others were charged via criminal information, and the investigation is ongoing. The probe demonstrates that, in an era of seemingly ceaseless white-collar crime, investigators are using leads uncovered in one case and following them to discover fraud schemes that perhaps would have gone undetected were it not for the discovery of an initial scheme.

    Charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud connected to a Ponzi scheme were Maria Baksh, 50, of Hollywood; Juan Cardenas, 48, of Miami; Gabriel Cifuentes, 63, of Hialeah; Maureen Cifuentes, 35; of Hialeah, Lucia Garcia, 58, of Pembroke Pines; Roberto Hernandez, 66, of Miami; Maribel Roman, 47, of Hialeah; Reinaldo Roman Jr., 39, of Hialeah; and Roberto Rodriguez, 43, of Miami.

    The case is tied to the purported “jewelry” Ponzi scheme of Luis Felipe Perez, 38, of Fort Lauderdale. Lopez was charged both civilly (SEC) and criminally last year (Secret Service/ICE). He was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to securities fraud.

    Investigators said he pocketed $6 million from his Ponzi scheme, which gathered $40 million. Investors were told they were financing his purported jewelry business and pawn shops in New York, authorities said.

    Perez, investigators now say, recruited “many” of the new defendants and referred them to Berta Sanders, 61, of Miami Lakes. Sanders, a CPA, helped them secure $12 million in commercial lines of credit by preparing false tax returns and false income statements submitted to Wachovia Bank. Proceeds from the loans were diverted to the Perez Ponzi scheme.

    “When Perez’s Ponzi scheme ultimately collapsed in May 2009, most of the fraudulent loans obtained from Wachovia defaulted,” prosecutors said, noting that the scheme cost Wachovia $10 million.

    Sanders, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud, is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 22 by U.S. District Judge Paul C. Huck.

    Viewed as a whole, the case featured the Perez Ponzi scheme and a related bank-fraud scheme over which Sanders allegedly presided for a 10 percent cut of the bogus loans she engineered, prosecutors said.

    It also featured a conspiracy by which other defendants fleeced the bank by allowing Sanders to prepare fraudulent documents so they could get the money to plow into the Ponzi scheme, prosecutors said.

    The investigation was undertaken by elements of the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.

    While investors were imagining “guaranteed annual returns of 18 percent to 120 percent through monthly interest payments,” the SEC said last year, Perez spent $3.2 million of their money on a home, $1 million on jewelry for himself and his wife, $400,000 to lease luxury cars, $300,000 on clothing for his wife, $300,000 for travel by private jet and $100,000 on artwork.

  • BULLETIN: Yet Another Florida Ponzi Scheme; SEC Accuses Luis Felipe Perez Of Operating $40 Million Fraud Backed By Fake Diamonds And Bogus ‘Pawn Shops’

    EDITOR’S NOTE: Here’s one for your Bubba Blue notebook on the various ways to have a Ponzi scheme, as opposed to shrimp.

    UPDATED 5:50 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A Miami man has been charged by the SEC with gathering $40 million in a Ponzi scheme, pocketing $6 million for himself and telling investors they were helping him finance his Florida jewelry businesses and pawn shops in New York.

    Investors believed their money was safe because it was backed by the man’s jewelry operations, diamonds and life insurance, the SEC said.

    The trouble with the claims of Luis Felipe Perez, according to the SEC, was that he “had no dealings with pawn shops and never provided financing to them.”

    UPDATE 5:50 P.M: Perez also has been charged criminally by federal prosecutors with six counts of securities fraud, after a probe by the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern District of Florida.

    The criminal case is part of an ongoing series of actions by the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, which President Obama established in November 2009, according to Ferrer’s office.

    At the same time, the SEC said, two “purported” jewelry businesses owned by Perez — Lucky Star Diamonds Inc. and Luis Felipe Jewelry Design Corp. — “did not generate sufficient revenue to pay investors’ principal and interest payments.”

    Clients did not know that “his primary source of money to pay investor returns was from new investors,” the SEC said.

    Although Perez said his offering was backed by “diamonds” in a bank safety-deposit box, the purported diamonds in the box “were fake,” the SEC said.

    Meanwhile, investors’ funds were not protected by a life-insurance policy as Perez had claimed because he had “defaulted on the policy premium” and allowed it to lapse, the SEC said.

    “Perez created an aura of success around him to lure old and new acquaintances into investing substantial sums of money,” said John C. Mattimore, associate regional director of the SEC’s Miami Regional Office. “Behind the luster of diamonds and jewelry, Perez told outright lies and made promises he couldn’t possibly keep.”

    While investors were imagining “guaranteed annual returns of 18 percent to 120 percent through monthly interest payments,” the SEC said, Perez spent $3.2 million of their money on a home, $1 million on jewelry for himself and his wife, $400,000 to lease luxury cars, $300,000 on clothing for his wife, $300,000 for travel by private jet and $100,000 on artwork.

    In addition, Perez paid himself a salary of $250,000, gave away more than $1 million to family members and made $100,000 in political contributions, the SEC said.

    The scheme collapsed in June 2009, when Perez “was no longer able to recruit new investors,” the SEC said.

    Because the scheme largely targeted Hispanics, it also had an element of affinity fraud, the SEC said. About 35 investors were affected.

    The U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Miami Police Department assisted in the probe, the SEC said.