Cubanos en el centro de estafas millonarias en Miami

Café Fuerte

Jorge Fausto Espinosa (izq.), identificado como cabecilla de la red, y Manuel López, encausados por estafar a seguros de viviendas.

Por Daniel Benítez

Dos recientes casos de estafas millonarias a seguros de casas y salud tuvieron entre sus protagonistas principales a varios cubanos residentes en el sur de la Florida, quienes encontraron la vía para llenarse los bolsillos de dólares y comprar autos, casas y obras de arte.

La Fiscalía de Miami, junto a varias agencias de la ley  revelaron al unísono esta semana dos complicados esquemas de fraude y anunciaron la detención de 36 personas en total, la mayoría nacidos en la isla.

Las estafas suman superan los $13 millones de dólares.

En el primero de los casos se trataba de una red dedicada a incendiar o inundar casas con el objetivo de cobrar el seguro correspondiente. Su máximo cabecilla fue identificado como Jorge Fausto Espinosa, de 60 años, quien era el dueño de una compañía encargada de tasar propiedades dañadas por diversos motivos para luego hace el reclamo a las aseguradoras.

Especialista en fuegos e inundaciones

Espinosa fue identificado como la pieza fundamental de esta cadena y era el enlace entre el propietario que efectúa un reclamo y las aseguradoras. Las autoridades también determinaron que el acusado trabajaba con varios reclutadores y personas encargadas de buscar interesados en quemar sus casas o inundarlas con el objetivo de hacer reclamos falsos.

Un vez identificados los “clientes potenciales” en esta red de crimen organizado, Espinosa visitaba las casas, las inspeccionaba y leía sus pólizas para determinar lo que resultaba más factible: si un incendio o una inundación. Tras este paso se concretaban los detalles y cumplía lo acordado con la ayuda de una o más personas.

La supuesta “víctima” contrataba entonces sus servicios y la compañía Nationwide Adjusters. proppiedad de Espinosa, se encargaba de realizar el reclamo. En caso de que la aseguradora disputara en corte o comenzara a hacer preguntas Espinosa contaba con la ayuda de uno o dos abogados del bufete Montesano&Perez, PL, quienes estaban enterados de todo el esquema fraudulento, según las autoridades.

Las autoridades contaron con un informante clave para obtener gran parte de la información necesaria para proceder con la acusación ante los tribunales.

Viviendas afectadas

En un documento de 52 páginas, la fiscalía estatal explicó que entre el 7 de julio de 2007 y el 20 de marzo de 2013 en total se incendiaron 20 casas y se inundaron cinco en los condados de Miami Dade, Lee, Collier, entre otros. En uno de los fuegos provocados en la ciudad de Naples resultó herido un bombero.

Entre las viviendas supuestamente afectadas estuvo la del propio Espinosa, quien reclamó daños por inundación superiores a los reales. Recibió un pago en esa ocasión de $69,739 dólares.

Según la Fiscalía, las aseguradoras pagaron en total más de $7 millones de dólares. Espinosa le cobraba a sus “clientes” el 20 por ciento de lo que recibieran por parte del seguro.

Sin embargo, esta no era la primera vez que el acusado se encuentra en problemas con la ley, de hecho enfrenta cargos similares por un operativo realizado el año anterior, por lo cual se mantiene en arresto domiciliario.

Los otros acusados son: Erlis Chercoles, de 43 años; Seth Horton, de  26; Yaima Sanchez, de 27; Ileana Sanchez, de 47; Marianela Hernandez, de 33; Joel Macineiras, de 42; Argelio Menendez, de 56; Jose Menendez, de 50; Manuel Lopez, de 39; Roberto Leon, de 41; Jose Pinero, de 49; Francisco Pineiro Gonzalez, de 39; Raudel Garcia, de 49; Lourdes Sarmiento, de 50; Maray Lopez, de 41; Yaniel Alvarez, de 33; Guenther Beer, de 67; Barbara Diana Beer Rivero, de 50; Alba Lucia Vargas, de 37; Daniel Lopez Acevedo, de 34; Nelson Fernandez, de 39; Angel Lopez, de 41; Fausto Marimon, de 37; Yanelis Gil, de 31; Jorge Antonio Pous, de 43; Lisvan Say, de 38; Camilo Avila, de 46; Janet Alamo, de 31; Roberto Suarez Medina, de 47; y Servito Amado Morales, de 43.

De ser hallados culpables, los acusados podrían encarar penas de hasta 30 años de cárcel.

Robando medicinas

En la segunda estafa están implicados un doctor y cuatro personas que supuestamente orquestaron un lucrativo negocio de tráfico de medicamentos para agenciarse más de $6  millones de dólares.

Los arrestados en este caso fueron el ginecólogo Rafael Prats, de 61 años, Dax Osle, de 41; Jose Capote, de 38; y Yulia Martinez, de 31 y una quinta persona de la que no se ofreció su identidad, pero que pudiera ser el líder de todo el esquema.

Según la policía de Miami Dade, durante el operativo se decomisaron $3.5 millones de dólares en efectivo y más de un millón en obras de arte y autos, entre ellos un Rolls Royce.

El fraude radicaba en que estas personas le compraban a pecientes los medicamentos recetados y luego los revendían a las farmacias. El problema es que muchos de esos medicamentos eran pagados por los contribuyentes a través de programas como el Medicare y el Medicaid, además de seguros de salud privados.

Los sospechosos operaban desde una farmacia ubicada en el 7175 del suroeste y la 47 calle, en Miami. Entre las medicinas que entraron en el negocio ilícito estaban algunas destinadas para el tratamiento del cáncer y el VIH.

Como parte del operativo las autoridades entraron a una propiedad valorada en $700 mil dólares, ubicada en el 10755 del suroeste y la 34 calle, la cual según récord públicos pertenece al doctor Rafael Prats.

Ola de estafas

En este caso las autoridades aun buscan a otro sospechoso identificado como Cándido Polo.

Los casos de estafas a seguros de propiedad, fraudes a programas médicos y robos de identidad de tarjetas de créditos han experimentado una espiral el área de Miami, en su mayoría protyagonizado por cubanos de las recientes olas migratorias.

El pasado abril,  en el vecino condado de Palm Beach, cuatro cubanos fueron encausados y comparecerán a juicio en los próximos días por formar parte de una red de robo de identidad y tarjetas de crédito en el sur de la Florida.

El próximo mes también será sentenciado en un tribunal de Connecticut, Amed Villa, el quinto de los cubanos residentes de Miami que protagonizaron el mayor robo de medicinas y equipos médicos en la historia de Estados Unidos en el 2010.

Los cubanos hallados culpables por delitos graves -residentes legales en Estados Unidos- son posteriormente considerados deportables. La orden de deportación no se ejecuta regularmente debido a que no existe un acuerdo de extradición vigente entre ambos países.

Unos 35 mil cubanos tienen orden final de deportación en Estados Unidos.

The Return of the Chess Cheat - The New Yorker

The New Yorker

By Simon Parkin

en.chessbase.com

Accounts vary as to how exactly a chess game between King Canute the Great and one of his most trusted Viking chieftains, Earl Ulf, went down, in 1026, but certainly cheating was involved, and for at least one party the match proved fatal. In their 1851 book “The Chess Player,” the German chess masters Bernhard Horwitz and Josef Kling tell a version of the story in which the king made a “false move” and lost one of his knights. Canute “would not have this,” they write, and insisted that he be allowed a redo, at which suggestion Ulf “waxed angry” and overturned the board. (The match took place at a banquet; he may have been emboldened by mead.) Things escalated. The king accused Ulf of cowardice, prompting the earl to remind Canute of the assistance he had rendered him at the Helge River, when, he gibed, “the Swedes beat you like a dog.” Ulf turned on his heel and retired for the night. It was to be his last: Canute had him killed in church the next day.

Chess cheating has, in the subsequent thousand years, grown less bloody but more sophisticated. Earlier this week, the twenty-five-year-old Georgian chess champion Gaioz Nigalidze [photo] was expelled and banned from the Dubai Open Chess Tournament. His opponent,

indianexpress.com

the Armenian grandmaster Tigran L. Petrosian (no relation to the late Armenian grandmaster Tigran V. Petrosian), grew suspicious when Nigalidze began retreating to the bathroom following key moves, often for long stretches of time and always to the same stall. Adjudicators, at Petrosian’s request, carried out a search and found a toilet-paper-wrapped iPod Touch nestled behind the bowl. A chess app was open on the device and the virtual match board mirrored the real one outside.

This kind of cheating is possible, of course, because chess is an internal game; its players do not need bodily strength or speed, power or grace. As such, there is no way to distinguish a master from an impostor, provided that the impostor has access to a master plan. And, thanks to the rise of apps like the one that Nigalidze apparently used, master plans are in abundance. “My dog could win a major tournament using one of these devices,” the English grandmaster Nigel Short told the Washington Post on Tuesday. “Or my grandmother. Anybody could do this.”

The battle, in other words, isn’t so much between cheats and masters as between people and computers, and people are being trounced. Chess is a game that is beyond the scope of the human mind—unmastered and, probably, unmasterable. The first four moves alone open up some two hundred and eighty-eight billion possibilities. In the nineteen-eighties, Garry Kasparov faced off against ten computers simultaneously, beating them all (while blindfolded, no less). The match was intended to send the C.P.U.s packing, but in 1997 Kasparov lost to I.B.M.’s Deep Blue, the computer equivalent of an idiot savant, an intelligence with no transferable skills, incapable even of learning tic-tac-toe. (Kasparov accused the computer of cheating and demanded a rematch, which I.B.M. declined.)

Besides being superb statisticians, chess-playing computers have another advantage over their human competitors: they are immune to bullying, which has been a part of chess since the days of the Knights Templar. In the sixteenth century, the Spanish clergyman Ruy López advised ruthless players to sit their opponent “with the sun in his eyes.” The Russian grandmaster Alexander Alekhine, who won almost every tournament that he played in the nineteen-twenties, would allow his Siamese cats to perch on the board before major games, in hopes that his opponent harbored an allergy. Aron Nimzowitsch, a contemporary of Alekhine’s, would smoke a noxious cigar and fix his opponent with a dread stare. In one notorious 1977 match, Boris Spassky positioned himself in a curtained booth behind his opponent’s chair, emerging, when it came time to play his turns, in, variously, a sun visor, swimming goggles, and a ski mask. His rival, Viktor Korchnoi, lost four games in a row before he recovered.

No wonder, then, that flesh-and-blood players called on computers for help as soon as they were able. An episode of “Cheers” from 1990 was prophetic: in it, Ted Danson’s character, Sam Malone, who does not know how to play chess, wins a wager match by taking dictation from a computer program. Since then, there have been numerous cases of high-tech cheating in the professional game, of which Nigalidze’s toilet-bowl conspiracy is only the latest. In 2006, the Indian player Umakant Sharma was caught communicating with accomplices through a Bluetooth device hidden inside his cap. In 2008, the Dubai Chess and Culture Club banned an Iranian player who was receiving moves via text message.

These incidents are deplorable and unsporting, yes, but they bring a certain Viking chutzpah back to the game. Among the top twenty players in the world, more than half of all matches end in a draw. But, with computer-assisted chess supremacy always within (surreptitious) reach, there is hope for the wearied spectator: perhaps one of these masters, hunched in ascetic contemplation, is furiously plotting not his next move but his next bathroom break.

British Couple Used $132,000 In Government Benefits To Fund Dream Wedding In Cuba

inquisitr

Manchester Evening News

Tracy Dougherty and her new husband, Stephen Turner, recently had their dream wedding on a beach in Cuba. According to Metro, the lovely couple also had the privilege of tying the knot with 20 of their close relatives they were also able to pay travel expenses for. Their enchanting, destination wedding was definitely a beautiful site to behold; one most people could only dream about. But, how they paid for their extravagant wedding has landed them both behind bars.

Several news outlets have reported that the couple fraudulently claimed more than $132,000 in government benefits from 2000 to 2013. A detailed breakdown of the couple’s fraudulent claims was reported by Manchester Evening News. Apparently, the 38-year-old woman claimed to be the single mother of four children, which enabled her to collect a supplemental income, housing benefits, and other tax benefits.

It has also been reported that her husband Stephen, 60, a self-employed truck driver also failed to report his income. He received unemployment benefits and falsely claimed to be his mother’s caregiver in order to use her as a dependent during that 13-year span. He also failed to report the funds in his checking and savings accounts.

Investigators reportedly found out about their false claims and conducted a full search of their home. That’s where invitations and other receipts from their wedding expenses were discovered. It has also been reported that the couple actually paid the travel expenses for their 20 guests. The travel accommodations alone reportedly cost nearly $30,000.

Counselor Paul Kenny recently weighed in with his opinion of the couple’s fraudulent actions in wake of the heightened number of controversial government benefit claims.

“This couple lived a lavish lifestyle at the expense of the local taxpayer. At a time when people are struggling to make ends meet, this kind of behavior will no doubt frustrate those footing the bill. Benefits are there for people who need them, not for those who want to subsidize their income and pay for expensive holidays.”

The couple was arrested from their home where they also denied living together, reports St. Helen The Reporter. On Feb. 27, Tracy Dougherty pleaded guilty to filing fraudulent claims for government benefits. and was reportedly sentenced to eight months in prison and her husband Stephen Turner has been ordered to repay an estimated $6,000.

Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/1932416/couple-used-132000-in-government-benefits-to-fund-dream-wedding-in-cuba-wont-be-living-happily-ever-after/#BKkbkoRcEqK0O4Sb.99

Miami: Capital del fraude desde ... Cuba

MiraTV

Criminales en Cuba: Caso Gilbert Man

AmericaTeVeCanal41

 

Cuba detuvo a fugitivo de la justicia estadounidense refugiado en la isla

martinoticias

Rolando Cartaya

“Se tiraron con la guagua andando”, dice un comentarista sobre la foto de unos lujosos regalos navideños publicada en la página de Facebook que el reguetonero cubano Gilberto Martínez Suárez mantenía en la Web bajo su nombre artístico de Gilbert Man.

La frase del argot popular cubano se le podría aplicar al uso que Suárez hizo de dineros que, al menos en parte, obtuvo ilegalmente en Estados Unidos mediante el uso de tarjetas de crédito falsas y robo de identidades.

Carnet de Identidad expedido en Cuba a Gilberto Martínez Suárez en marzo del 2014

Por ello fue acusado en el condado floridano Miami-Dade en septiembre pasado, y antes, en mayo del 2013, en el condado  de Martin. Pero pagó una fianza y escapó a Cuba. Diez meses después las autoridades de la isla le expidieron un carnet de identidad que fue mostrado, al destapar la historia la semana pasada, por el programa Las Dos Orillas del canal America Teve.

Pero la ropa de Gucci y zapatos y accesorios de Louis Vuitton mostrados en las fotos palidecen ante el despliegue de ostentación, comparable a la de un capo de las drogas, que Suárez hacía rutinariamente desde Cuba en las redes sociales. En especial desde la mansión habilitada con muebles importados y baldosas españolas que construyó en el suburbio habanero de Guanabacoa: rejas de hierro forjado, piscina con bar y jacuzzi, un enorme garaje donde mantenía entre otros vehículos dos motocicletas y al menos cinco autos, todos modernos y caros (un Camaro, un Saab, un Hyundai, un Audi y un BMW); y hasta un par de pavorreales en el jardín.

Ostentación: parte de su dinero lo obtuvo Gilbert Man de fraudes con tarjetas de crédito en EE.UU.

El alarde incluye una foto de Gilbert Man con varios fajos de dólares entre su bíceps y su antebrazo derechos, y un reguetón donde aparece ante una virtual alfombra de billetes verdes y dice tener “mucho dinero en el banco”.

La noticia, sin embargo no es ésa: se había vuelto habitual para las autoridades estadounidenses descubrir que cubanos acusados en
Estados Unidos de fraudes al Medicare, a las compañías de seguros de autos o a las tarjetas de crédito, huían a la isla a disfrutar de lo robado, con la seguridad de que nunca serían molestados ni extraditados. En algunos casos transferían su botín a bancos cubanos, como en el de Jorge Emilio Pérez, quien a través de su compañía de envío de dinero Caribbean Transfers, envió a la isla 30 millones de dólares.

Fuerzas élite del MININT custodian la casa allanada del fugitivo de la justicia de EE.UU. Gilberto Martínez Sánchez (ATV).

La noticia es justamente que Suárez, uno de estos fugitivos fue detenido por fuerzas élite del Ministerio del Interior dos días después de que el diario Sun-Sentinel de Fort Lauderdale publicara el fruto de un año de investigaciones, incluidas las que realizó en Cuba, sobre este “ferrocarril subterráneo” de la delincuencia que, según el diario, denota un abuso de la Ley de Ajuste Cubano.

Y también menos de un mes después de que los gobiernos de Cuba y Estados Unidos anunciaran su intención de restablecer y normalizar sus relaciones.

En noviembre, Gilbert Man había convencido a la revista cubana de entretenimiento Vistar de que había regresado a Cuba como un hombre de negocios atraído "por el olor de la isla" y con el propósito de ayudar a impulsar la música urbana.

En un reportaje sobre el caso publicado este sábado el Sun-Sentinel señala que en las últimas dos semanas el Servicio de Alguaciles de EE.UU. ha estado compilando una lista de fugitivos que se cree se encuentran en Cuba. “Por si acaso cambian las cosas”, dijo al diario el portavoz del servicio, Barry Golden, refiriéndose a la posibilidad de que el gobierno de Cuba acceda a extraditar a los fugitivos de la justicia estadounidense, o al menos a los que no considera perseguidos políticos. Golden indicó al Sentinel que “parece que [Suárez] ha sido detenido”.

A diferencia de los delincuentes profesionales, Gilbert Man, de 28 años, adorado según consta en su Facebook por fans y cobeneficiarios de su malhabida riqueza, se incineró en la hoguera de las vanidades, convirtiéndose en el chivo expiatorio perfecto.

Queda por ver si en los nuevos tiempos que corren será enviado de regreso a enfrentar la justicia de EE.UU. Y si después de él otros seguirán regresando. Esposados.

Cuba paraiso de delincuentes: Cubanos roban en EEUU y escapan a la isla

AmericaTeVeCanal41

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Ver tambien: 

http://cubaindependiente.blogspot.ca/2015/01/the-cuban-criminal-pipeline-part-i_10.html

http://cubaindependiente.blogspot.ca/2015/01/the-cuban-criminal-pipeline-part-ii.html

The Cuban Criminal Pipeline - Part I: Exploiting U.S. Laws

SunSentinel.com

By Sally Kestin, Megan O'Matz and John Maines, with Tracey Eaton in Cuba

Photography and videography by Taimy Alvarez

U.S. policy created for humanitarian reasons 50 years ago has fueled a criminal pipeline from Cuba to Florida, enabling crooks from the island to rob American businesses and taxpayers of more than $2 billion over two decades.

A yearlong Sun Sentinel investigation found money stolen in the United States streaming back to Cuba, and a revolving door that allows thieves to come here, make a quick buck and return.
Cuba has become a bedroom community for criminals who exploit America’s good will.
“There’s a whole new sub-class of part-time residents that flow back and forth,’’ said Rene Suarez, a Fort Myers attorney who represents Cubans charged in criminal schemes. “They tell me stories and live very comfortably in Cuba with the illegitimate money that they’re able to obtain here in the United States.”
The Sun Sentinel traveled to Cuba, examined hundreds of court documents, and obtained federal data never before made public to provide the first comprehensive look at a criminal network facilitated by U.S. law.
The Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, a remarkable act of Congress passed at the height of the Cold War, gives Cubans advantages over every other immigrant group.

Cubans are allowed to enter the United States without visas or background checks of their criminal histories in Cuba. Unlike other immigrants seeking political asylum, Cubans can return home without jeopardizing their status, aiding crime rings that recruit accomplices and hide stolen money in Cuba.

The law has remained largely unchanged while financial and travel restrictions between the two countries have loosened, priming the system for abuse.
Strained relations between the countries make it nearly impossible to capture criminals who flee to the island. They also make it nearly impossible to deport criminals to Cuba after they serve their sentences in the U.S., as would be the case with criminals from most other countries. The crooks can stay here, free to steal again.
Cuban crime rings are staging car accidents for insurance fraud, hijacking trucks, and selling their Medicare numbers to provide for their families in Cuba. They’re smuggling money from these illegal enterprises on charter flights to Cuba, paying mules to take cash back and wiring dollars through Western Union.

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“Some of these folks are basically funding life in Cuba for their families,” said Miami-Dade Police Lt. Jose Gonzalez, whose detectives dismantle marijuana grow houses run mostly by Cuban nationals. “These people are going to Cuba weekly or monthly. These are citizens of Cuba commuting here to work.”
This free flow of criminals and cash has made a mockery of the two pillars of U.S. policy toward Cuba: the trade embargo designed to financially choke the Castro government and the special immigration rules that envisioned a one-way path for Cubans to escape communism.
Cuba’s state-controlled economy benefits from the illicit money. In one South Florida insurance scam alone, ringleaders sent millions back to the island and the Cuban government seized $200,000.
Long known as a safe haven for fugitives from America and other countries, Cuba now is harboring scores of its own citizens wanted for economic crimes in the U.S.

Fugitive Angel Ricardo Mendoza is a lifeguard at this beach in Sante Fe, Cuba. Mendoza is wanted on charges of diverting a truck with $180,000 in nickles from the Federal Reserve in 2004. Agents never found $45,000 or Mendoza, who still carries his U.S. identification cards.

The Sun Sentinel found and interviewed fugitives living openly on the island, including one wanted on charges he stole a semi-trailer loaded with $180,000 in nickels from the Federal Reserve. Another, charged in a $1 million credit-card fraud ring, had boasted that he went to the U.S. to steal and taunted authorities to “come to Cuba to look for me.”

In unveiling his initiative to “promote greater openness with Cuba” last month, President Obama did not address whether immigration rules should be tightened, or whether the U.S. will be able to deport some 34,500 convicted Cuban criminals and force Cuba to return fugitives never brought to justice here.
Members of Congress interviewed about the Sun Sentinel’s findings say the ease with which Cuban criminal networks can operate in the U.S. must be part of a wide-ranging discussion on increased engagement with the country that has stood as America’s nearest enemy for five decades.

Special Status

Criminals are corrupting the intent of the Cuban Adjustment Act: to provide refuge to those fleeing Fidel Castro and communism.
Cubans need only touch U.S. soil to be admitted to the country. They’re automatically considered political refugees and are immediately eligible for welfare, food stamps and other assistance. After a year and a day, they can obtain permanent residency, known as a green card.
Immigrants from other countries can wait years for visas just to be admitted to the U.S., and then wait years more for government benefits. Those fleeing persecution risk losing their asylum if they return to their home countries before becoming U.S. citizens.
More than 1 million Cubans have come to the U.S. since the 1959 Communist revolution, creating one of America’s most prosperous immigrant communities. While the overwhelming majority are law-abiding, a small faction has come to specialize in certain, mostly economic, crimes.
The federal government has long pointed to the prevalence of Cuban immigrants in Medicare fraud, as first reported in the Miami Herald, but authorities never quantified it. The Sun Sentinel analyzed court bookings data and found that Cuba natives, operating primarily in South Florida, are so prolific they account for less than one percent of the U.S. population but are responsible for 41 percent of arrests nationwide for health-care fraud.
The reach of Cuban crime rings extends far beyond ripping off the U.S. government health program for the elderly and disabled.
In Miami-Dade County, where 24 percent of the population was born in Cuba, immigrants from the island account for 73 percent of arrests for health-care fraud; 72 percent of arrests for cargo theft; 59 percent of arrests for marijuana trafficking; and half the arrests for credit-card and insurance fraud.

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Crime wave

U.S. policy gives Cubans special treatment over every other immigrant group, facilitating an underground criminal network that has spread from South Florida throughout the nation. Immigrants born in Cuba are disproportionately represented in arrests for certain crimes. Here are the percentages of arrestees since 2000 who were Cuban-born:

Arrests in Miami-Dade County*

24% of the county's population is Cuban-born

Federal arrests in Florida

4 percent of the state's population is Cuban-born

Federal arrests nationwide

Less than 1 percent of the U.S. population is Cuban-born

*Miami-Dade County statistics include state and federal charges.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts, U.S. Census Bureau. Population estimates are based on the 2013 five-year average. Federal arrest data from 2000 to mid-December 2014. Miami-Dade arrest data from 2000 to June 2014.

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Among Cuban-born defendants sentenced to federal prison for these crimes, two out of three are still Cuban citizens.

Their take: more than $2 billion since 1994, a conservative tally based on restitution ordered in federal cases and a Sun Sentinel sampling of state cases in Florida.

Alex Acosta, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said Medicare thieves alone steal more than $2 billion each year in South Florida.

“The United States has opened its doors to Cuban refugees under the Cuban Adjustment Act,” said Acosta, the son of Cuban immigrants who is now dean of the Florida International University law school. “That is an extraordinary immigration offer that the United States has done for political and humanitarian reasons, and it is offensive that these individuals are abusing that.

“It’s equally offensive that the Castro regime is allowing them to do so and profiting from crime in the United States.”

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The close ties that the criminals have to Cuba and the involvement of many new arrivals has spurred speculation among investigators, prosecutors and even members of Congress about whether the Cuban government is behind the fraud. Cuba denies it.
The Sun Sentinel’s review of hundreds of court cases found many of those charged had arrived without visas and would have been refused entry and sent home had they not been Cuban. Others were convicted repeatedly of ripping off businesses and the government, but could not be deported.
Among them:
⚫ A Cuban national convicted twice for theft before he joined a Palm Beach County credit-card fraud ring that stole $750,000.
⚫ Another who allowed his name to appear as owner of a North Miami Beach pharmacy that stole $695,000 from Medicare in two months; he was paid $10,000 for his signature and $40,000 to go back to Cuba.
⚫ Two Miami Cuban citizens with multiple convictions who are charged as leaders in a 48-person, multi-state ring that stole $500 million in prescription drugs from Medicaid.
U.S. policy toward Cuba has made America an easy mark for criminals coming from an impoverished nation, said Scott Stewart, vice president of analysis at Stratfor, a global intelligence firm based in Austin, Texas, and author of a report on organized crime in Cuba.
“We’re so rich, and we’re so close,” he said. “It’s a very good environment for them to operate in.”

Cash to Cuba

A massive South Florida fraud ring that stole millions from auto insurers in recent years shows how U.S. policy benefits the criminals and allows them to easily return with ill-gotten cash, a possibility policymakers never intended.
The $18 million fraud involved 21 clinics in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties and more than 100 mostly-Cuban participants. They staged accidents, smashing cars with a sledgehammer, and billed insurers for treatment of nonexistent injuries.

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Ties to Cuba

A ring that staged car accidents in South Florida involving 21 clinics and $18 million in fraudulent insurance claims shows how Cuban criminals have exploited U.S. policy meant to provide refuge for those fleeing communism. Ringleaders frequently traveled back and forth to Cuba, smuggled millions to the island and fled there to avoid prosecution.

Travel Connections Money Deportation Fugitives

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The masterminds were Cuban immigrants, Lazaro Vigoa Mauri, then 45, and Vladimir Lopez, 38, who traveled back to the island as often as every month during the scam, according to a 2013 indictment charging them with fraud and money laundering.
Lopez spent most of his time in Cuba, former employee Carmen Venegas testified. “He was here, then he would go back to Cuba, but he was traveling constantly — every 15 days, on the weekend, every 20 days.”
The leaders employed new arrivals who came without visas and were allowed entry into the United States under the Cuban Adjustment Act. At least three other participants had been ordered removed for previous crimes but were still here because Cuba refuses to take back most deportees.
The criminals took advantage of U.S. policy intended to help Cubans resettle and occasionally return for visits, using those trips home to smuggle millions from their illegal ventures back to the island.
“Individuals were buying properties and taking money to Cuba, and they were also having other individuals smuggle it to Cuba for them,” South Florida IRS agent Pamela Martin testified at a 2013 court hearing.

One had three houses in Cuba — a notable achievement on an island that legalized private property sales only three years ago.
The owner of one clinic scammed insurers out of more than $400,000, smuggling much of it to Cuba on commercial charter flights, a former employee admitted in a plea agreement.
Another left Cuba on a raft, became a massage therapist at one of the clinics and then started his own. He withdrew thousands from his clinic’s bank account and sent it in $500 increments to relatives in Cuba “via friends who were traveling there,” he told agents.

The leaders escaped. Vigoa, Lopez and three others fled to Cuba, where U.S. authorities can’t touch them. Vigoa returned to his hometown of Pinar del Rio, his ex-girlfriend told agents, and had a cousin send his furniture from West Palm Beach.
Cuba’s safe harbor had a price, records show. One fugitive, Martin testified, “had a couple hundred thousand dollars seized by the Cuban government” for unjust enrichment, a charge Cuba levies against people with too much unexplained money.
Criminal defense lawyers told the Sun Sentinel they know of other fugitives who returned to Cuba and had to give the government a cut of their money.
“If people are not in a position to pay off public officials to the amount and degree they demand, they sometimes wind up in jail until they come up with the amount,” said Samuel Rabin Jr., a Miami defense lawyer. “Some of them pay a significant amount of money and are never jailed.”
These criminal enterprises also generate millions of dollars that find their way into the government-run Cuban economy.
The million-dollar credit-card fraud ring in Texas paid for trips to Cuba and sent Western Union money orders back to relatives. A Tampa ring bought gift cards and electronics with counterfeit credit cards and shipped goods to the island. And a South Florida marijuana cultivation ring funded major renovations to homes in Cuba with luxuries ordinary Cubans could not afford: new appliances, tile, custom crown moldings.
“There’s a tremendous amount that I’ve seen in my cases of underground money that goes there,” said Humberto Dominguez, a Miami criminal defense lawyer. “It’s huge.”

Commuters from Cuba

Recent changes by both countries have made it easier for all Cubans to commute between the two. The Obama administration in 2009 loosened restrictions on Cuban Americans visiting and taking money to the island. The Cuban government eliminated exit visas in January 2013, allowing its citizens to travel to the U.S. and stay up to two years without losing their homes and benefits in Cuba.

Obama is now moving to loosen U.S. limits on travel and money to Cuba even further, allowing export of more categories of items to Cuba and permitting banks to open accounts in Cuba.
“I think this is going to increase crime here,” said Suarez, the defense attorney. He says he has already seen an increase in Cubans commuting to the U.S. to commit crimes.
“They come here to make some money for a few months and then they go back until that money runs out, and then they come back to make some more,” he said. “Folks can live over there very, very well with the money they make in a few months here in Florida sitting on a [marijuana] grow house.”

That was Juan Sanchez Sotolongo’s plan. Three months after he arrived from Cuba last year, police found him growing marijuana at a west Miami-Dade house.
Sanchez Sotolongo told a detective he was “visiting from Cuba and he was just trying to make some money to go back home.”
After a court appearance, he was caught trying to board a flight to Havana and is now serving a 3.5-year prison sentence for marijuana trafficking.
Many Cuban Americans who long ago established roots in the U.S. say the back-and-forth travel, even for legitimate reasons, exploits a policy that envisioned an open, but not revolving, door.
“Look, how many people went back to Russia or the Soviet Union or back to Hitler, back and forth and did business?” said Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American studies at the University of Miami. “I mean, C’mon, this is crazy.”

Juan Sanchez Sotolongo

‘Don’t go to Cuba on me’

Cuban fugitives are escaping to the island after bonding out of jail and on the eve of their trials.
“It’s easy as 1-2-3 now,” said Joseph Houston, owner of Liberty Bail Bonds in Naples. “They’ve opened the doors wide open.”
They leave by plane or boat, or cross into Mexico from Texas and then go to Cuba. If courts confiscate their passports, they can obtain replacements or fake documents. Some are stopped at travel checkpoints, but countless others get through by sneaking out of the country or leaving before arrest warrants are issued.

Once in Cuba, they’re safe from American authorities. When fugitives run to other countries, the U.S. can typically have them extradited.
“The first time a bondsman called me and said, ‘He’s gone back to Cuba,’ I said, ‘Are you crazy?’” said Rolando Betancourt, a Miami-based bounty hunter.
Former bondsman Nidia Diaz of Miami said she left the business after a dozen Cubans skipped out, leaving her to repay thousands to the courts. “What takes us by surprise is we never encountered this problem with Cubans before,” she said.
Lilia Casal-Perez posted bond for a West Palm Beach woman after her arrest in a grow house. “I told her, ‘Don’t go to Cuba on me.’” She did.

When a marijuana lab exploded inside a Kendall West house in September 2012, blowing off the roof and doors and damaging nearby homes, the occupants — a couple with a baby and an 8-year-old — ran out, hopped in their cars and sped away.
“They were saying in Spanish, ‘Let’s go, let’s go!’” said Miami-Dade Police Detective Guillermo Cuba.
Within two days, police told the Sun Sentinel, Erisbel Velasco Herrera and Maylen Del Castillo Sanchez were back in Cuba.
Ibrahim Cueto Bernardo caught a charter flight from Miami to Cienfuegos, Cuba, on the morning he was to stand trial for auto-insurance fraud in Tampa. The 2012 trial continued without him, and he was convicted. His public defender filed an appeal, at taxpayer expense.
Yudiel Muro Escalona, a new arrival from Cuba charged in a counterfeit credit-card ring, disappeared the day after police came to his Miami house to arrest him. His mother told agents he returned to Cuba and was living in Artemisa, a city near Havana.

Harboring fugitives

Angel Ricardo Mendoza, 52, is on Interpol’s wanted list for stealing $180,000 from the U.S. Federal Reserve. He lives in a Cuban fishing village only about 100 miles from Key West, but U.S. officials can’t touch him.
A Cuban citizen, Mendoza was a Miami-based truck driver when he admitted he stole a tractor-trailer loaded with newly minted nickels bound for New Orleans in 2004. He drove the haul to southwest Miami-Dade, where accomplices buried the loot in the backyard of a house with 88 pot plants inside.
Federal agents never found $45,000 of the nickels, or Mendoza.
The Sun Sentinel tracked him down in Santa Fe, on the northwest side of Havana. He works as a lifeguard and lives a few blocks from the beach in a modest house with a large picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the wall. He still carries his green card and Florida driver license.

Angel Ricardo Mendoza

Angel Ricardo Mendoza's home (toward the back of this building through the gate on the right) in Santa Fe, Cuba.

Mendoza said he couldn’t resist the opportunity he saw in those 900 bags of nickels.
“Damn! 15 palettes full of money!” he told the Sun Sentinel. “I committed a crime I shouldn’t have.”
Mendoza, who had been in the U.S. for 13 years, high-tailed it back to Cuba. Federal officials said an accomplice wired Mendoza money, but he claims he took none of the loot.
He said he spent more than a year in jail in Cuba after he returned, although he did not know why. Other fugitives in Cuba have been jailed or fined for illegally bringing money into the island or for immigration violations, bail bondsmen and criminal defense lawyers told the Sun Sentinel.

An extradition treaty between the U.S. and Cuba, signed more than a century ago, is not recognized by either country. Cuba has historically harbored about 70 murderers and hijackers from America and other countries who fled there in the 1970s and ’80s, and in the past decade has increasingly become a refuge for its citizens fleeing prosecution in the U.S.

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Cuba is known for sheltering Medicare fraud fugitives, but has expanded its safe harbor to droves of other criminals.
More than 500 Cuban-born fugitives have outstanding arrest warrants for federal charges in the U.S., and another 500 on state fraud and drug charges in Florida, though their whereabouts are unknown. The FBI has estimated 30 to 50 health-care fraud fugitives went to Cuba. The Sun Sentinel, through court documents and interviews, determined that at least 50 more fled to the island, wanted for other frauds or marijuana cultivation.
A U.S. State Department spokesman said the U.S. “repeatedly raises their cases with the government of Cuba.”
A senior Cuban government official, also speaking on condition he not be named, said the U.S. expects information on fugitives “but doesn’t give it. The U.S. government is to blame because it hasn’t created the conditions for cooperation.”
Over the past decade, Cuba has agreed to the return of about 10 fugitives, most of them non-Cubans.

Catch me if you can

Life for U.S. fugitives in Cuba ranges from ordinary to opulent.
Jorge Emilio Perez de Morales Sante, wanted on charges he laundered $238 million stolen from Medicare, some of which ended up in banks in Cuba, has a two-story waterfront home on Quinta Avenida (Fifth Avenue) in an exclusive neighborhood of Havana. Nestled among palm trees and facing the Florida Straits, the home is down the street from a Cuban vice president and luxurious by Cuban standards.

Medicare fraud fugitive Jorge Emilio Perez de Morales Sante escaped to Cuba, where he has this waterfront home in Havana facing the Florida Straits. Inside, the walls are lined with colorful artwork.

A woman answering the door and calling herself a caretaker said he wasn’t home. “That’s all I can say,” she said.
The Sun Sentinel found another fugitive from U.S. justice living in a far more modest, sparsely furnished home in Santa Clara in central Cuba.

Livan Moya Tagle, charged in a million-dollar Texas credit-card fraud ring, told the Sun Sentinel that he stole to feed his family, and that Cubans go to the U.S. for economic opportunity. “No one leaves because of politics,” he said.
Moya wrote a rambling letter to the judge in his case in 2013, trying to clear his co-defendants and saying he fled to Cuba “with a great quantity of money.”
American authorities naively think “Cubans who leave Cuba hate the Cuban government,” he wrote. “I went to the U.S. to steal, to damage the U.S. Government.”
Moya included his return address and dared officials to get him.
“Come to Cuba to look for me,” he wrote. “Do it if you can.”

February 2013 letter from Cuba sent by fugitive Livan Moya Tagle to a Texas judge handling his credit card fraud case. See it bigger