MIAMI \u2013 A Miami man was sentenced on Oct. 2 to 230 months in federal prison and ordered to pay more than $16 million in restitution for operating an investment Ponzi scheme disguised as a merchant cash advance (MCA) business.<\/p>\n
Chief U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga imposed the sentence on Pablo Silverio Rebollido, 48, of Miami, who previously pleaded guilty to wire fraud.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis defendant built his fortune on lies while leaving investors in ruin,\u201d said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Qui\u00f1ones for the Southern District of Florida. \u201cWe will continue to protect investors, safeguard our markets, and ensure that criminals who commit financial crimes face justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to court documents, Rebollido owned and founded two Miami-based companies, E-Card Lending LLC and E-Card Merchant LLC (collectively E-Card). E-Card purported to engage in the business of providing MCAs\u2014a type of short-term financing typically used by small and medium-sized businesses.<\/p>\n
E-Card claimed to loan money at high interest rates to its clients in the form of lump-sum cash advances in exchange for a percentage of future credit card sales or daily bank deposits. From August 2019 through February 2024, Rebollido fraudulently solicited money from investors under the false pretense that their funds would be used to finance E-Card\u2019s MCAs, promising them regular monthly returns based on company profits. In reality, E-Card had no legitimate clients. Rebollido used new investor funds to make payments to earlier investors and to finance his lavish personal lifestyle. More than 70 investors were defrauded, resulting in losses exceeding $40 million.<\/p>\n
U.S. Attorney Reding Qui\u00f1ones and Special Agent in Charge Brett D. Skiles of the FBI, Miami Field Office,\u00a0made the announcement.<\/p>\n
FBI Miami investigated the case.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert F. Moore and Jon Juenger prosecuted the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Grosnoff is handling asset forfeiture.<\/p>\n
You may find a copy of this press release (and any updates) on the website of the United States Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of Florida at\u00a0https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-sdfl<\/a>.<\/p>\n Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at\u00a0www.flsd.uscourts.gov<\/a>\u00a0or at\u00a0http:\/\/pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov<\/a>,\u00a0under case number 25-cr-20127.<\/p>\n ###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2013 A Miami man was sentenced on Oct. 2 to 230 months in federal prison and ordered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":{"0":"post-55144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hialeah","8":"tag-hialeah","9":"tag-hialeah-headlines","10":"tag-hialeah-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}