The U.S. Department of Justice said the former board chair and co-owner of Puerto Rican bank Nodus International Bank will serve 62 months in prison for his part in a wire fraud conspiracy.
Juan Francisco Ramirez, 60, of Miami Florida, will also serve three years of supervised release and pay approximately $13.6 million in forfeiture. Officials said Ramirez led the scheme to fraudulently obtain more than $23.6 million from Nodus Bank.
“This defendant abused the trust of his bank’s depositors, and when the bank went under, innocent people lost their savings,” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, said. “The Criminal Division won’t stand for it. We will use every resource at our disposal to protect this country’s financial system and the decent, hardworking people who rely on it.”
According to investigators, Ramirez conspired with others to siphon money from the bank. He and a co-conspirator concealed the theft from other Nodus Bank board members and executives, and the Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions of Puerto Rico, that certain investments or loans were for the benefit of Ramirez and the co-conspirator. From 2017 to 2023, Ramirez conspired with others to invest more than $11 million of Nodus Bank’s funds in a Miami-based lender so the lender could loan those funds to Ramirez and the co-conspirator. Ramirez and the co-conspirator knew these transactions were illegal and took steps to conceal their identity by having the bank make sham investments into the lending entity.
Additionally, between January 2018 and September 2021, Ramirez and a co-conspirator fraudulently induced Nodus Bank’s board and comptroller to agree to, or facilitate the purchase of nearly 50 promissory notes totaling approximately $25.3 million from a Miami-based finance company that Ramirez and the co-conspirator jointly owned. Ramirez and his co-conspirator then used the loan proceeds for their own benefit, including to pay mortgages or cover personal credit card expenses.
“Ramirez was entrusted to lead a bank. Instead, he looted it. He secretly steered millions of dollars in bank funds to benefit himself and his associates, causing nearly $24 million in losses and contributing to the bank’s collapse,” U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida, said. “Today, he was sentenced to 62 months in federal prison and ordered to forfeit more than $13 million. This sentence sends a clear message: those who abuse positions of trust to enrich themselves will be held accountable.”
Officials with OCIF notified Nodus Bank of its intention to place the Bank into liquidation. Knowing the liquidation process would commence immediately, Ramirez and a co-conspirator caused Nodus Bank to purchase from their Miami-based finance company, a loan portfolio totaling $26 million. Many of the loans were delinquent, nonperforming and otherwise uncollateralized. Ramirez and his co-conspirator caused the bank to accept the loan portfolio as payment of their Miami-based finance company’s debt arising from the 47 promissory notes. The move resulted in a direct benefit to the finance company (as well as Ramirez and the co-conspirator) by relieving the finance company of its debt to the bank.
Officials estimate Ramirez’ actions cost the bank at least $23.6 million.