The chairman of the board of Nodus International Bank (Nodus), a Puerto Rican international banking entity, pleaded guilty today for his role in leading a scheme to fraudulently obtain more than $13.6 million from Nodus, which ultimately led to the bank’s failure in 2023.
“The defendant abused his position as Chairman of the board of directors to fraudulently divert funds from the bank that he had been entrusted to run, resulting in the bank’s collapse,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “The Criminal Division is committed to investigating and prosecuting white-collar fraudsters, no matter how lofty their position, to ensure their crimes do not pay.”
According to court documents, Juan Francisco Ramirez, 60, of Miami, Florida, conspired with others to siphon money from Nodus. Ramirez and a co-conspirator concealed from other Nodus board members and executives, and the bank’s regulator – the Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions of Puerto Rico (OCIF) – that certain investments or loans were for the benefit of Ramirez and a co-conspirator, in violation of Puerto Rican law and Nodus policy regarding insider transactions.
From 2017 to 2023, Ramirez conspired with others to invest more than $11 million of Nodus’s funds in a Miami-based lender so that it could loan those funds to Ramirez and a co-conspirator for their own benefit. Ramirez and his co-conspirators knew that these transactions were illegal and took steps to conceal their prohibited nature by having the bank make sham investments in the lending entity.