(Photo Illustration by The Real Deal with Getty and Google Maps)
Venezuelan couple Carlos Castañeda and Genesis Martusciello came to South Florida in pursuit of better opportunities. Both now are in prison for their part in a real estate fraud.
Castañeda, Martusciello and their co-conspirators targeted ex-Venezuelan government officials and business elite with residential properties in South Florida, The Wall Street Journal reported. From 2019 to 2020, the fraudsters impersonated property owners by using fake passports to obtain $10 million in bogus loans. The funds bankrolled a lavish lifestyle complete with trips to Las Vegas and stays at some of the Miami properties.
Jonnathan Gonzalez and Katherine Hansen, another couple sentenced, squatted at a mansion owned by a frontman for President Nicolás Maduro’s stepchildren, the Journal reported, citing Secret Service records.
Castañeda and Martusciello — who had emigrated separately in the last decade and met in South Florida — as well as Gonzalez and five others have pleaded guilty. They are in prison with sentences varying from 28 months to six-and-a-half years. Hansen, who also is a Venezuelan immigrant and pleaded guilty, was released this year.
The scheme capitalized on absentee property owners. Some of the victims had legal woes of their own and had been sanctioned by the U.S., meaning they no longer could travel to their South Florida homes. But the lack of local government resources to go after property…
