A Venezuelan couple that immigrated to America about a decade ago ran an aggressive multi-million dollar real estate scheme in which they posed as powerful Venezuelan regime-members banned by the Trump administration from America and assumed control of their lavish properties.
The fraudsters, using fake passports and drivers licenses, posed as the property owners of four luxury properties in the Miami area and took out loans against the luxury real estate, which they used to live the high end lifestyles of their victims.
The properties were owned by Venezuelan regime-members who were sanctioned and barred from entering the US during the Trump years and largely had their assets frozen so that they were unable to check in on or access their Miami residences.
The targeted properties included two luxury condos at the Oceana Bal Harbour, where the average home price is $5.9 million, a condo at the Mei Miami, where a modest 2-bedroom goes for $1.3 million and an 11,000 square foot Pinecrest mansion that sold for $5.3 million in 2016.
A $5.3 million Pinecrest Miami mansion owned by alleged narcotics trafficker Samark Lopez Bello that the schemers targeted in their criminal conspiracy
Bello also owns an apartment at the Four Seasons Residences in Brickell, which the fraudsters squatted in for a time
A picture of criminal ringleader Carlos Castañeda with his mother
Oceana Bal Harbour complex, where one of the Venezuelan ‘victims’ owned a luxury…
