The former board chairman and co-owner of Nodus International Bank (Nodus Bank), a Puerto Rican International Banking Entity, was sentenced today to 62 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and to pay forfeiture of approximately $13.6 million, which represents the value of the proceeds he derived from the wire fraud conspiracy. Juan Francisco Ramirez, 60, of Miami, Florida, led a scheme to fraudulently obtain more than $23.6 million from Nodus Bank.
“This defendant abused the trust of his bank’s depositors, and when the bank went under, innocent people lost their savings,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “The Criminal Division won’t stand for it. We will use every resource at our disposal to protect this country’s financial system and the decent, hardworking people who rely on it.”
“Ramirez was entrusted to lead a bank. Instead, he looted it. He secretly steered millions of dollars in bank funds to benefit himself and his associates, causing nearly $24 million in losses and contributing to the bank’s collapse,” said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida. “Today, he was sentenced to 62 months in federal prison and ordered to forfeit more than $13 million. This sentence sends a clear message: those who abuse positions of trust to enrich themselves will be held accountable.”
“Financial frauds can be complicated, but the law is simple: do your business honestly and protect your depositors, or you will be brought to justice,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Charles Miller of the IRS Criminal Investigation Florida Field Office. “IRS Special Agents, alongside our partners, will keep bringing transparency to complex financial crimes and protecting confidence in our banking system.”
In September 2025, Ramirez pleaded guilty to an information charging one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
According to court documents, Ramirez conspired with others to siphon money from Nodus Bank. Ramirez and a co-conspirator concealed from other Nodus Bank 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 Bank policy regarding insider transactions.
From 2017 to 2023, Ramirez conspired with others to invest more than $11 million of Nodus Bank’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.