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A Venezuelan couple who immigrated to America about a decade ago ran an aggressive multi-million dollar real estate plan in which they posed as powerful Venezuelan regime members exiled from America by the Trump administration and took control of their lavish properties.
Using fake passports and driver’s licenses, the fraudsters impersonated the owners of four luxury properties in the Miami area and took out loans against the luxury real estate, which they used to live the luxurious lifestyle of their victims.
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 largely frozen so that they were unable to check in or access their residences in Miami.
The properties include two luxury condos in the Port of Oceana Bal, where the average home is $5.9 million, a Mei Miami condo, where a modest 2-bedroom costs $1.3 million, and an 11,000-square-foot Pinecrest mansion. meters that sold for $5.3 million. in 2016.
A $5.3 million Pinecrest Miami mansion owned by alleged drug trafficker Samark Lopez Bello that the schemers were the target of their criminal conspiracy
Bello also owns an apartment in the Four Seasons Residences in Brickell, where the crooks have squatted for a while.
A photo of criminal leader Carlos Castañeda with his mother
Ringleader Carlos Rafael Castañeda Mendez, 35, recruited fellow Venezuelan migrants to participate in the fraudulent scheme involving him, including his romantic interest Genesis Martusciello, 29, and six others.
The schemers believed that if Venezuelan officials, including a businessman and an accomplice of dictatorial Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, could no longer travel to the US to watch over their luxury properties, they were up for grabs.
Using fake passports and driver’s licenses, Castañeda and his associates successfully impersonated four of the luxury properties’ owners and convinced lenders to lend them nearly $10 million in mortgages on homes they didn’t own.
They then borrowed money against the houses and transferred the money to their bank accounts.
The criminals used the money to buy expensive watches, luxury jewelry and trips to Vegas.
For part of the scheme’s duration, the perpetrators even lived in the lavish homes of wealthy owners and used their cars, including a Ferrari, Bentley, and Rolls-Royce.
According to the Wall Street JournalIn the report of the incident, Florida real estate attorneys called the scam “one of the most brutal real estate frauds the US has ever seen.”
The criminals cleverly took advantage of a facet of the state’s booming real estate market called “hard-money lending,” which often requires only a license or passport with a name matching a title deed to access a loan or mortgage. .
The eight fraudsters are now in prison and face sentences ranging from just over two years to six and a half years.
Law enforcement officers are continuing to investigate individuals they believe were involved in the settlement, 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 behind bars for his part in orchestrating the aggressive real estate plan
After targeting the two luxury Oceana apartments owned by former Venezuelan state oil director Luis Carlos de Leon-Perez, the thieves turned to businessman Samark Lopez Bello’s stucco mansion with six bedrooms and six and a half baths.
Leon-Perez was indicted in 2017 on charges of corruption in the US and pleaded guilty in 2018.
Lopez Bello was charged in 2017 by the US Treasury Department of involvement in an illegal drug trade and money laundering involving a former Vice President of Venezuela. He was sanctioned and his assets frozen by the US, and was later added to the Most Wanted List by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Bello has denied the allegations.
Bello’s Pinecrest mansion was not on the public list of his assets frozen because it is owned by a limited liability company registered in his daughter’s name, meaning it could be mortgaged.
In a statement to the Journal, Bello said he was disappointed that this crime could take place in the US.
“When I decided to invest in real estate in the United States, I thought the United States was the safest place in the world. “The lack of security and safety that allowed these criminals to invade my privacy, steal my vehicles, break into my property, pawn my property and steal my daughter’s identity has proved me wrong,” he said.
The schemers, who fled the economically oppressive Venezuelan regime, felt that stealing from the cronies who helped form the foreign government was more just revenge than crimes against truly innocent people.