MIAMI — Tomás Niembro, the former chief executive officer of Nodus International Bank, is awaiting sentencing in Miami for a fraud estimated at more than $24 million.
Niembro, 64, a Venezuelan who lived in Miami-Dade, pleaded guilty to federal charges and agreed to forfeit more than $16 million as part of a plea agreement on Thursday, according to prosecutors.
IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge Ron Loecker, of the Florida field office, released a statement about the case on Friday.
“Executive-level fraud has real victims, and yesterday’s outcome is a step toward restoring accountability and confidence in the banking system,” Loecker said about Niembro’s guilty plea.
According to U.S. Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva, Niembro turned the bank he managed into a “personal ATM,” and he violated U.S. sanctions. The bank failed in 2023.
Niembro’s crimes “undermine the integrity of our financial system, threaten economic prosperity, and harm national security,” said Duva, of the Justice Department’s criminal division.
From 2017 to 2023, Niembro and others prompted the bank to invest $11 million in a Miami-based lender, so Niembro could borrow the funds, according to federal prosecutors.
Niembro also prompted the bank’s purchase of at least 47 promissory notes for $25.3 million from a Miami-based company that Niembro co-owned, and caused the bank to accept a loan portfolio from the company to pay down the debt, according to prosecutors.
Niembro “used his position as CEO to siphon more than $24 million, hide conflicts of interest, and help drive the bank’s collapse,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason A. Reding Quiñones said on Friday.
Niembro also had the bank foreclose on a house owned by a sanctioned man and sold it back to him through a front company, according to prosecutors.
“The scheme also involved efforts to evade U.S. sanctions tied to Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA,” Quiñones said. “As a career prosecutor and former state trial judge, I’ve learned that following the money reveals the truth. Here, it exposed both fraud and sanctions violations.”
Niembro pleaded guilty to a two-count information charging conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. His sentencing is on June 8.
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