United States of America v. Tomás Niembro Concha

Miami, Florida criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1349 and conspiracy to violation the international emergency powers act in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1956.

Tomás Niembro Concha, 64, a Spanish and Venezuelan national, the former chief executive officer of Nodus International Bank (Nodus Bank), a Puerto Rican international bank abused his position with Nodus Bank to commit fraud for his own enrichment and to willfully evade sanctions on a designated individual.

Niembro conspired with others to siphon money from Nodus Bank, ultimately leading to the bank’s failure in 2023. Niembro and his co-conspirators concealed from other Nodus Bank board members, executives and the bank’s regulator, OCIF, that certain investments and loans were for the benefit of Niembro and Board Chairman Juan Ramirez, in violation of Puerto Rican law. From 2017 to 2023, Niembro, Ramirez, and others caused Nodus Bank to invest $11 million in a Miami-based lender so those funds could be loaned to Niembro and Ramirez for their own benefit. Niembro and his co-conspirators knew that these transactions were illegal and concealed their conduct through the sham investments.

Between January 2018 and September 2021, Niembro and Ramirez also fraudulently induced Nodus Bank’s board and comptroller to agree to buy at least 47 promissory notes totaling approximately $25.3 million from Nodus Finance, a Miami-based company that Niembro and Ramirez jointly owned, so they could use the proceeds of the transactions for themselves.

In early March 2023, OCIF notified the bank it would be placed into liquidation. Niembro and Ramirez fraudulently caused Nodus Bank to accept a loan portfolio from Nodus Finance to pay down the debt from the 47 promissory notes.

Between 2021 and 2023, Niembro conspired with others to conduct prohibited financial transactions with an individual designated as a Specially Designated National (SDN) by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for providing material support to Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). To satisfy an outstanding loan of approximately $2.5 million that the SDN’s company had with Nodus Bank prior to the imposition of sanctions, Niembro and the SDN devised a scheme to cause Nodus Bank to foreclose on the SDN’s home in Southampton, New York — for which they obtained OFAC authorization — but separately reached a “private” agreement to induce Nodus Bank to sell the property back to the SDN for $4 million through a front company — a transaction that was strictly prohibited by U.S. sanctions and not otherwise licensed by OFAC.

The Defendant was found guilty and was sentenced to 112 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.