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A Miami federal judge invoked an ailing 80-year-old widow as she sentenced former Nodus chairman Juan Francisco Ramirez to 62 months in prison.<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
The former chairman of Nodus International Bank was sentenced Wednesday to more than five years in federal prison for helping siphon millions of dollars from the failed Puerto Rico bank, as a federal judge weighed his extensive cooperation against the financial devastation suffered by customers, including an ailing 80-year-old widow who said she could no longer pay her debts and medical bills.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams sentenced Juan Francisco Ramirez, 61, to 62 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for his role in a years-long fraud scheme that prosecutors say helped bring about the 2023 collapse of a bank heavily used by Venezuelan customers.<\/p>\n
The sentence was substantially below the advisory federal guideline range of 161 to 188 months and the 112-month sentence Williams imposed last month on Ramirez\u2019s former business partner and Nodus chief executive, Tom\u00e1s Niembro Concha. Prosecutors sought from 65 to 75 months, while defense attorney Lilly Ann Sanchez asked for 48 months.<\/p>\n
Williams said Ramirez deserved substantial credit for cooperating with federal prosecutors and helping the receiver assigned to the bank try to recover money for Nodus customers. But as she explained the sentence, the judge repeatedly returned to the people who lost money when the bank collapsed.<\/p>\n
She singled out a letter from an 80-year-old widow who was ill and had lost access to money left by her husband.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am dying. I am sick. I have debt and no money to pay my debts,\u201d Williams quoted the woman as writing. \u201cThis is the money my husband left, so I wouldn\u2019t have to go through this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s just one story,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
The judge contrasted victims such as the widow with Ramirez, an educated, financially successful banker with a supportive family. Williams said she regularly sentences people whose crimes arose from desperation, poverty or mental illness \u2014 circumstances that do not excuse their actions but can help explain how they ended up in court.<\/p>\n
What puzzled her, she said, was why someone who had enjoyed education, financial security and a strong family would engage in conduct that devastated people who entrusted their money to his bank.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that there is an 80-year-old widow who\u2019s dying and can\u2019t pay her medical expenses is not part of the calculation,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
Cooperation cuts years from sentence<\/p>\n
Ramirez pleaded guilty in September 2025 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, admitting that he used his position as Nodus chairman to participate in a scheme that diverted bank funds through insider loans, investments and promissory notes.<\/p>\n
At Wednesday\u2019s hearing, Williams granted the government\u2019s motion seeking a reduction for Ramirez\u2019s substantial assistance. The main dispute was how large that reduction should be.<\/p>\n
Justice Department attorney Samir Paul, appearing for the government with Assistant U.S. Attorney Felipe Plechac-Diaz, described Ramirez as the second-most culpable of four defendants prosecuted in connection with the fraud, behind Niembro. Prosecutors said Ramirez and Niembro were co-owners and joint leaders of the scheme, with Niembro personally gaining about $16.9 million and Ramirez about $13.6 million.<\/p>\n
But Ramirez also provided prosecutors with significant cooperation.<\/p>\n
Sanchez said Ramirez began cooperating within days of his March 2025 arrest, admitted his culpability and provided information that helped authorities pursue Jos\u00e9 Gregorio Suarez, a former Nodus official, as well as information that led to a sanctions-related charge against Niembro for conduct in which Ramirez was not involved.<\/p>\n
She also emphasized Ramirez\u2019s work with the receiver overseeing efforts to recover Nodus assets. Sanchez said he helped identify and contact borrowers, fill gaps in incomplete bank records and persuade people who had stopped repaying loans to deal with the receiver once they realized Ramirez was cooperating with the Justice Department.<\/p>\n
Williams ultimately concluded that Ramirez\u2019s assistance in recovering assets deserved additional weight, effectively giving him a 35% cooperation reduction.<\/p>\n
\u2018I betrayed their trust\u2019<\/p>\n
Before Williams imposed the sentence, Ramirez accepted responsibility for his conduct.<\/p>\n
He acknowledged betraying clients, friends and families who had trusted the bank with money needed for living expenses, healthcare and financial security.<\/p>\n
Ramirez also described speaking to university students about his experience. He said a student asked whether he had spoken about the families harmed by his conduct, a question that caused him to think more deeply about the consequences of what he had done.<\/p>\n
His wife, Maria Gabriela Vasquez de Ramirez, and daughter, Daniela Ramirez, also addressed the judge.<\/p>\n
His wife said the experience had changed her husband\u2019s understanding of the value of money and the consequences financial decisions can have on other people. She described him taking modestly paid delivery work after his arrest, saying it had given him a different appreciation for earning money.<\/p>\n
His daughter told the judge that her father had accepted responsibility rather than hide from his mistakes. She described a book he wrote for his grandchildren that uses colored dots to represent the different parts of a person\u2019s life \u2014 including black dots for mistakes that have consequences but do not erase everything else about the person.<\/p>\n
Williams said she found Ramirez\u2019s efforts at rehabilitation credible.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to have to worry about Mr. Ramirez\u201d committing new crimes, she said, adding that he might someday help others understand \u201chow this could happen and how we can prevent it from happening again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Millions moved through Miami companies<\/p>\n
According to prosecutors, Ramirez, Niembro and others concealed from Nodus board members, executives and Puerto Rico banking regulators that investments and loans made by the institution benefited Ramirez and Niembro themselves.<\/p>\n
From 2017-23, prosecutors said, they caused Nodus to invest $11 million in a Miami-based lender so money could ultimately be loaned to the two bankers for their own benefit.<\/p>\n
Between January 2018 and September 2021, they also fraudulently induced Nodus officials to purchase at least 47 promissory notes totaling approximately $25.3 million from Nodus Finance, a Miami company jointly owned by Ramirez and Niembro.<\/p>\n
As Puerto Rican regulators prepared to liquidate the bank in March 2023, prosecutors said Ramirez and Niembro caused Nodus to accept a loan portfolio from Nodus Finance to pay down debt associated with the notes.<\/p>\n
Ramirez agreed as part of his guilty plea to forfeit at least $13.6 million.<\/p>\n
Paul said Wednesday that prosecutors have since calculated approximately $23.6 million in losses attributable to fraud schemes involving Ramirez. He said approximately $87 million remains missing from Nodus overall, although the government did not attribute all of that money to Ramirez\u2019s criminal conduct.<\/p>\n
Bank popular with Venezuelans<\/p>\n
Nodus International Bank was a Puerto Rico-chartered international bank founded in 2009 and largely run by Venezuelans. It attracted Venezuelan customers seeking access to the international banking system, including people in South Florida and abroad.<\/p>\n
Because Nodus operated as an international bank, its deposits were not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.<\/p>\n
The institution also had substantial Miami ties. Nodus Finance operated from an office on Brickell Avenue, and some of the transactions at the center of the federal prosecution involved South Florida companies.<\/p>\n
Blas Santander, a business consultant who said he had helped Nodus obtain clients since 2011, told the Miami Herald that he began noticing what he described as a pattern of Ramirez misleading customers about the bank\u2019s finances and plans during meetings.<\/p>\n
Santander also accused Ramirez and Niembro of failing to return $500,000 that he said they obtained from his Nodus account. Santander said the bankers told him they needed the money to demonstrate proof of funds while establishing a correspondent banking relationship.<\/p>\n
The parties entered into a loan agreement in July 2023, according to documents reviewed by the Herald. Santander said the money was instead transferred to LiteFintech, a money-services business that he alleged was owned by Ramirez.<\/p>\n
Santander said the money has never been returned.<\/p>\n
When he threatened Ramirez with legal action, Santander said, the former bank chairman appeared unconcerned.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u00bfQu\u00e9 le hace una raya m\u00e1s al tigre?\u201d Santander recalled Ramirez telling him \u2014 a Spanish expression roughly meaning, \u201cWhat\u2019s another stripe on a tiger?\u201d<\/p>\n
Santander\u2019s allegations involving the $500,000 are separate from the conduct described in the federal criminal case against Ramirez, based on the court records reviewed by the Herald.<\/p>\n
Former CEO\u2019s sentence<\/p>\n
Niembro, 64, a Spanish and Venezuelan national, was sentenced by Williams last month to nine years and four months in prison and ordered to forfeit more than $16.9 million.<\/p>\n
Niembro also pleaded guilty to conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions against Venezuela.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said the sanctions scheme involved an individual designated by the Treasury Department for providing material support to Venezuela\u2019s state-owned oil company, PDVSA.<\/p>\n
The sanctioned individual\u2019s company owed Nodus approximately $2.5 million, and the bank received U.S. government authorization to foreclose on the individual\u2019s Southampton, New York, home. Prosecutors said Niembro and the sanctioned individual instead arranged for Nodus to sell the property back for $4 million through a front company in a transaction prohibited by U.S. sanctions.<\/p>\n
At Wednesday\u2019s hearing, Paul described Niembro as the most culpable of the four defendants and Ramirez as second, while acknowledging that Ramirez\u2019s cooperation justified a significantly shorter sentence.<\/p>\n
Williams did not determine restitution Wednesday. She said a separate hearing would be held within 90 days to resolve the amount and how the obligation should be allocated among the defendants.<\/p>\n
Ramirez was not taken into custody. He had been free on bond and attended the sentencing in civilian clothes. Williams ordered him to surrender to begin serving his sentence by noon on Dec. 1.<\/p>\n
Before ending the hearing, Williams commended Ramirez for what she described as sincere efforts to change.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see people do and say things that I am not always certain are sincere,\u201d she told him. \u201cBut I think what you\u2019ve done is a credit to you and to your family.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hearing had been emotional for Ramirez\u2019s family. After his wife finished addressing Williams and returned to her seat, she began sobbing as a relative embraced her. When Ramirez\u2019s daughter returned to her seat after speaking, the same relative hugged and kissed her.<\/p>\n
Ramirez remained in the courtroom with Sanchez after the hearing ended. He reached for his wife\u2019s hand, and the two held hands as they walked out of the courtroom.<\/p>\n
Once outside, they embraced and wept.<\/p>\n
Antonio Maria Delgado<\/a><\/p>\n el Nuevo Herald<\/p>\n Galardonado periodista con m\u00e1s de 30 a\u00f1os de experiencia, especializado en la cobertura de temas sobre Venezuela. Amante de la historia y la literatura.\n <\/p>\n
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