(Image Illustration by The Serious Offer with Getty and Google Maps)
Venezuelan couple Carlos Castañeda and Genesis Martusciello came to South Florida in pursuit of improved possibilities. Equally now are in prison for their aspect in a genuine estate fraud.
Castañeda, Martusciello and their co-conspirators focused ex-Venezuelan govt officials and business enterprise elite with household attributes in South Florida, The Wall Avenue Journal documented. From 2019 to 2020, the fraudsters impersonated residence entrepreneurs by applying faux passports to get hold of $10 million in bogus financial loans. The resources bankrolled a lavish way of life finish with excursions to Las Vegas and stays at some of the Miami properties.
Jonnathan Gonzalez and Katherine Hansen, yet another couple sentenced, squatted at a mansion owned by a frontman for President Nicolás Maduro’s stepchildren, the Journal reported, citing Secret Company information.
Castañeda and Martusciello — who experienced emigrated independently in the very last decade and achieved in South Florida — as properly as Gonzalez and five other folks have pleaded guilty. They are in jail with sentences various from 28 months to six-and-a-half yrs. Hansen, who also is a Venezuelan immigrant and pleaded guilty, was produced this 12 months.
The plan capitalized on absentee residence owners. Some of the victims experienced authorized woes of their own and experienced been sanctioned by the U.S., that means they no extended could journey to their South Florida residences. But the absence of community govt sources to go right after assets theft, and lax lending restrictions for difficult-income financing, also permitted for the fraud.
For Castañeda and Martusciello, the plan was retribution of sorts versus the cronies of a Venezuelan govt the pair observed as corrupt.
“There is a saying that the thief who steals from a thief has 100 a long time of forgiveness,” Gonzalez told the Journal in a concept from prison.
But, the scam also permitted them to love the very same opulent way of life as that of the Venezuelan elite they abhorred.
Among the homes applied in the plan were being a pair of Oceana Bal Harbour condos registered to the wife and mother-in-legislation of previous Venezuelan condition oil govt Luis Carlos de Leon-Perez. Leon-Perez pleaded guilty in 2018 to corruption expenses in the U.S.
A Pinecrest mansion at 9300 Southwest 63rd Courtroom, with ownership tied to businessman Samark Lopez Bello, was also utilised in the fraud. While the U.S. had sanctioned Lopez Bello and frozen his assets about allegations he was concerned in a narcotics trafficking and income-laundering scheme, the property was not among the the frozen belongings and could be mortgaged.
Castañeda and a mate also had squatted in a 4 Seasons Residences apartment owned by Lopez Bello.
In addition, the scam included a device at the Mei condo in Miami Beach, The True Deal documented in October.
Castañeda and Martusciello didn’t react to requests for remark by the Journal, and Hansen declined to comment.
Lopez Bello, who has denied the fees towards him and is combating the narcotrafficking allegations, informed the Journal he hasn’t been compensated for the cars and trucks and other home stolen from him.
— Lidia Dinkova
