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, was sentenced to 112 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

Mr Niembro led a scheme to obtain at least $24.9 million from Nodus Bank fraudulently and conspired to evade U.S. sanctions against Venezuela. The court ordered Mr Niembro to forfeit more than $16.9 million, representing the proceeds he derived from the wire fraud conspiracy.

On March 19, Mr Niembro pleaded guilty to a two-count information charging conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

Mr Niembro conspired with others to siphon money from the bank, ultimately leading to the bank’s failure in 2023, according to court filings.

Mr Niembro and his co-conspirators concealed from other Nodus Bank board members, executives, and the bank’s regulator, OCIF, that certain investments and loans benefited Mr Niembro and board chairman Juan Ramirez, violating Puerto Rican law.

From 2017 to 2023, Messrs Niembro, Ramirez, and others caused Nodus Bank to invest $11 million in a Miami-based lender so they could loan those funds to Messrs Niembro and Ramirez for their own benefit. Mr 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, Messrs Niembro and Ramirez also fraudulently induced Nodus Bank’s board and comptroller to agree to buy at least 47 promissory notes totalling approximately $25.3 million from Nodus Finance, a Miami-based company Messrs Niembro and Ramirez jointly owned so that they could use the proceeds for themselves.

In early March 2023, OCIF notified the bank it would be placed into liquidation. Messrs 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, Mr 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 before the imposition of sanctions, Mr 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 authorisation—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.