South Florida trio convicted of sham infant-formula exports to Suriname

Three South Florida business people bought millions of dollars of infant formula at steep discounts for supposed exports to South America, but instead they enriched themselves by selling the products at high prices in the United States, a federal jury has found.

The trio lied about having government procurement contracts in Suriname so they could qualify for buying the infant formula and other medical goods at reduced costs here, the Fort Lauderdale jury concluded Thursday after a two-week trial. Then, they falsified records and shipments to make it look like the products were actually exported to the small South American country.

Raoul Doekhie, 51, of Suriname, Sherida Nabi, 55, of Suriname, and Johnny Grobman, 46, of Golden Beach, were found guilty of conspiring to commit wire fraud, money laundering and other charges. A fourth defendant, Edgar Torres, 61, of Branford, Fla., pleaded guilty to the wire fraud conspiracy before trial. Their sentencings before U.S. District Judge Roy Altman are set for April 23.

According to trial evidence, the trio’s Fort Lauderdale-Suriname business operation was a sham. The three business partners did not have government procurement contracts in the South American country and did not intend to export the products there during the course of the scheme between 2013 and 2018, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“Instead, Grobman and [the] others sold the products in the United States for tens of millions of dollars, which the three defendants later split among themselves,” the office said in a news release. More than $61 million in illicit proceeds went to Grobman, and more than $69 million to Doekhie and Nabi, the office said.

The defendants hid their fraudulent activity from the U.S. companies that supplied the infant formula in three ways, according to trial evidence. The first was to send “dummy” shipments of powdered sheet-rock compound with the same weights as the infant formula; the second was to ship the actual infant formula but to bring it back to the United States in a “U-turn”; and the third was to falsify export shipping records showing the products were exported to Suriname when they actually never left the United States.

The case, investigated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, illustrates the exploitation of the “gray market,” which involves the diversion and resale of certain goods that were not intended for distribution in the United States, according to prosecutors.

In December, five businessmen convicted of exploiting a “Buy American” program to fleece millions of dollars from U.S. medical and food suppliers in a global racket were sent to prison in Miami federal court.

Ringleader Bryamji Javat, a Pakistani who headed Dubai-based Uniworld Group, received a 10-year sentence after pleading guilty to a wire-fraud conspiracy that enabled him and his associates in South Florida and other parts of the United States to profit off the sale of discounted American products under a government program promoting the domestic economy.

This story was originally published February 7, 2020 at 3:55 PM.