A Venezuelan couple who immigrated to America about a decade ago ran an aggressive multimillion-dollar real estate program in which they posed as powerful members of the Venezuelan regime who were banned from America by the Trump administration and who took control of their lavish possessions.
Using fake passports and driver’s licenses, the scammers posed as the owners of four luxury homes in the Miami area and took out loans for the luxury homes, which they used to live their victims’ upscale lifestyles.
The properties belonged to members of the Venezuelan regime, who were sanctioned and banned from entering the US during the Trump years, and whose assets were mostly frozen, preventing them from checking into or accessing their Miami residences.
Properties included two luxury condos at Oceana Bal Harbor, where the average home costs $5.9 million, a condo at Mei Miami, where a modest 1-bedroom apartment costs $1.3 million, and a 11,000 square foot Pinecrest mansion that sold for $5.3 million in 2016.
A $5.3 million Pinecrest Miami mansion owned by suspected drug dealer Samark Lopez Bello, targeted by the schemers in their criminal conspiracy
Bello also owns an apartment in the Four Seasons Residences in Brickell, which the scammers occupied for a time
A picture of criminal ringleader Carlos Castañeda with his mother
Ringleader Carlos Rafael Castañeda Mendez, 35, recruited other Venezuelan migrants to join him in the fraudulent scheme, including his romantic interest Genesis Martusciello, 29, and six others.
The schemers thought that if Venezuelan officials, who included a businessman and a servant of dictatorial Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, could no longer travel to the US to guard their luxury properties, they would be on the alert.
Using fake passports and driver’s licenses, Castañeda and his associates successfully posed as four of the owners of the luxury properties and convinced lenders to mortgage them nearly $10 million on homes they didn’t own.
They then borrowed money from the houses and transferred the money to their bank accounts.
The criminals used the money to buy expensive watches, high-end jewelry, and trips to Vegas.
For part of the program’s duration, the perpetrators even lived in the opulent homes of wealthy owners and used their cars, including a Ferrari, Bentley and Rolls-Royce.
According to the Wall Street Journal’s report on the incident, Florida real estate attorneys called the scam “one of the boldest real estate frauds the United States has ever seen.”
The criminals cleverly exploited a facet of the state’s booming real estate market called “hard money lending,” which often only requires a license or passport with a name matching a title deed to gain access to a loan or mortgage.
The eight scammers are now in prison and face sentences ranging from just over two years to six and a half years.
Law enforcement officials continue to investigate individuals they believe were involved in the scheme, which lasted from May 2019 to May 2020.
Members of the Venezuelan elite own some of the most luxurious real estate in the Miami area
Castañeda was sentenced to 78 months in prison for his involvement in orchestrating the aggressive real estate plan
After targeting former Venezuelan oil executive Luis Carlos de Leon-Perez’s two luxurious Oceana condos, the thieves turned their attention to businessman Samark Lopez Bello’s six-bedroom, six-and-a-half-bath stucco mansion.
Leon-Perez was indicted on US corruption charges in 2017 and pleaded guilty in 2018.
Lopez Bello was accused by the US Treasury Department in 2017 of involvement in a drug trafficking and money laundering scheme involving a former Vice President of Venezuela. He was sanctioned and his assets frozen by the US and later placed on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Most Wanted List. Bello denies the allegations.
Bello’s Pinecrest mansion was not on the public list of his frozen assets because it is owned by a limited company registered in his daughter’s name, which meant it could be mortgaged.
In a statement to the Journal, Bello said he was disappointed that this crime could happen in the United States.
“When I decided to invest in real estate in the United States, I believed that the United States was the safest place on earth. “The lack of protection and security that allowed these criminals to invade my privacy, steal my vehicles, break into my property, mortgage my property and steal my daughter’s identity proved me wrong,” he said he.
The schemers fleeing the economically oppressive Venezuelan regime felt that stealing from the cronies who helped shape the foreign government was more just revenge than a crime against truly innocent people.