Miami feds drop case against deceased gold trader ‘Peter Ferrari’ and his associates
Federal prosecutors in Miami have dropped a major money laudering case against a deceased Peruvian gold trader, his twin sons and his bodyguard because of the main defendant’s recent death from COVID-19 in his homeland, according to a dismissal order.
Pedro David Pérez Miranda, 60, died in late September at a hospital in Lima, Peru, after struggling with the coronavirus respiratory disease. His alias was “Peter Ferrari,” a nickname given to him by the news media because of his love for flashy cars, beautiful women and the yellow precious metal, gold.
After Pérez’s death, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami moved to dismiss the money-laundering indictment against Ferrari as well as his twin sons, Gian Piere Pérez Gutierrez and Peter Davis Pérez Gutierrez, and former bodyguard, Jose Estuardo Morales Diaz.
“In light of his death and the pendency of the remaining defendants’ extraditions, the government respectfully moves to dismiss the indictment,” read the order, signed Tuesday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro.
Ferrari, who had been in custody in Peru before his hospitalization, was accused along with his associates in a November 2017 indictment of trading tons of gold illegally mined in the country’s rainforest and selling it to three Miami brokers at NTR Metals. The trio of NTR traders pleaded guilty to a $3.6 billion money-laundering conspiracy and were sentenced to several years in prison.
Ferrari had earned a notorious reputation as a suspected smuggler of “dirty gold” who used shell companies, straw owners, false paperwork and cash bribes to move the precious metal to lucrative markets in Miami and other parts of the United States.
Federal prosecutors alleged that South American drug traffickers washed their illicit proceeds from cocaine through the unlawful gold mining industry in the Madre de Dios region of Peru, where Ferrari was suspected of acquiring most of his precious metal for export to the United States.
In their plea deals, NTR Metals’ three brokers, Samer Barrage, Renato Rodriguez and Juan Granda, admitted dealing with Ferrari as part of their smuggling of tainted gold between January 2013 and March 2017 for NTR, which was owned by Dallas-based parent company, Elemetal.
Prosecutors said the three brokers circumvented Elemetal’s anti-money-laundering compliance program by buying gold from Ferrari. An Elemetal compliance officer warned them about buying gold from the Peruvian, but they ignored the warnings and set up accounts at Elemetal for a series of “front companies” so they could buy and import $400 million worth of gold.
In total, the NTR brokers purchased $1 billion worth of gold from “collectors” of the precious metal in Peru during 2013, before Peruvian authorities began cracking down on the illegal mining and smuggling trade. Authorities there confiscated some of Ferrari’s shipments destined for NTR and other gold businesses in Miami.
In 2018, NTR’s parent company, Elemetal, pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program and paid a $15 million fine — $10 million in gold that was seized by the Peruvian authorities and $5 million to the U.S. government.
This story was originally published December 17, 2020 at 9:11 AM.
