Miami money launderers in a $4 million fraud lost a Rolls, a Lamborghini and freedom
A $4 million healthcare scheme focused on a South Florida specialty, Medicare fraud, ended this week with the last two money-laundry men learning how long they’ll be in federal prison.
Reinier Gonzalez Caballero and Alexeis Napoles Manresa, ages 39 and 37 respectively, were each sentenced in Miami federal court to four years and three months after September trial convictions. Each was convicted of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Gonzalez Caballero was found guilty of four counts of money laundering, and Napoles Manresa was found guilty of five counts.
Already at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami are the scheme’s mastermind, 30-year-old Alfredo Ruiz, who got eight years, nine months for conspiracy to commit money laundering; and Pedro Ferreiro Conde, a 34-year-old who got three years, six months for washing the loot.
When Ruiz went down, he lost in forfeiture $141,580 from the sale of a Rolls-Royce and a Lamborghini; a $120,480 cashier’s check representing proceeds from pawned jewelry; a 14-karat rose gold ball chain; a King Power Hublot Watch, Diego Maradona edition, with gold on black rubber strap; $70,000 cash; and a forfeiture money judgment of $4,485,323.
Empty companies, fake services, real Medicare money
As described in Ruiz’s guilty plea, he planned a basic healthcare fraud in July 2019 with companies Universal Ortho and Expedited Medical that purported to deal in durable medical equipment, such as prosthetics.
The companies “submitted millions of dollars in claims to Medicare in several months, and then abandoned the company’s leased storefront space without properly providing the durable medical equipment to patients.”
Then again, many patients said they never requested the equipment that the Ruiz companies claimed they did, and physicians said they didn’t prescribe it. One of the companies billed Medicare $5.3 million between July and September 2019 , got $4.5 million, then stopped paying rent that December and was evicted.
Still, the companies got the fraudulent claims paid. Now, Ruiz had to clean the cash or launder it as best he could.
Ruiz told Gonzalez Caballero, Napoles Manresa and three co-conspirators who became cooperating witnesses (to incorporate a shell corporation and set up a corporate bank account. Ruiz’s two companies would bill Medicare for false claims. Money would be moved from the Ruiz companies’ accounts to the shell companies’ accounts and then to other corporate accounts or in cash to Ruiz or Conde, also known as “Titi.”
Five companies would be the money gateways:
▪ Gonzalez Caballero’s RGC Flooring, which he registered with the state using the address of a Westchester home on Southwest 82nd Avenue;
▪ Napoles Manresa’s JMP Flooring, registered with the state at a unit in the Gables Sunview Apartments, 6355 SW Eighth St.;
▪ Julio Cesar Betancourt’s JD Solution USA, registered using the Northwest 88th Avenue address of a Hialeah Gardens home;
▪ Yunior Alberto Lopez Concepcion revived a dormant shell he’d had with Napoles Manresa, GTS Express Delivery, and registered using an address in Kendall’s Sunset Gardens Apartments. Lopez Concepcion pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering, got sentenced to 2 1/2 years in September 2020 and was released Oct. 1, 2021.
▪ Lilian Castro’s CLM Wholesale, registered at a rented house on Northwest 19th Terrace in Miami’s Grapeland Heights area, just east of the airport. Castro’s in federal prison in Aliceville, Ala., doing four years for conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Ruiz’s companies fed each of those five companies between $50,000 and $100,000 each month. For setting up the accounts and being “on call” to move the money, Ruiz paid each person about $500 per week.
Sometimes, the money moved through multiple companies. Ruiz’s factual proffer says, in one case, GTS Express sent a $13,490 check to RGC Flooring on Aug. 30, 2019. Then, RGC sent a check for $13,519 to JD Solution USA.
This story was originally published January 7, 2022 at 6:01 AM.
