Two Venezeulan citizens living in Doral and Weston pulled a fraud that included what federal lawyers called “Ponzi-like” payments on a group of investors, most of whom were Venezuelan-Americans, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.
While Doral’s Richardo Javier Guerra Farias and Weston’s Francisco Javier Malave Hernandez officially neither admit or deny the SEC’s charges, they consented to the financial punishment in the final judgment signed last week in Miami federal court by U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Becerra.
Guerra will pay $147,152, the net profits from the scheme, plus $29,223 of interest and a civil penalty of $200,000. Malave’s net profits will have him paying $558,900, $158,087 in interest and a $200,000 civil penalty.
Toller Stern Financial, based on Brickell Avenue during the actions in the SEC complaint, will pay $748,300 in net profits, $211,660 in interest and a $1 million civil money penalty.
All of that money, $3,253,322, will be paid to the SEC by Nov. 14. Also, Guerra and Malave are banned from being officers or directors at any company that issues securities.