Wealthy Venezuelans invested millions with a sanctioned Coral Gables advisor. They’re suing
As their country’s economy collapsed, countless Venezuelans turned to the United States as a safe haven to protect their money — including dozens drawn to a Miami investment advisor who won their trust.
His name is Andrew H. Jacobus.
Now several of those affluent investors have sued Jacobus and his firm, accusing them of fraud and civil theft involving tens of millions of dollars, according to civil court filings. They have also notified the Securities and Exchange Commission, which had sanctioned Jacobus over pocketing exorbitant fees in a cease-and-desist order in 2020 when he and his Coral Gables-based firm, Finser International Corporation, managed about $79 million in investment funds.
Five of Jacobus’ investors have accused their former investment advisor of withholding and misappropriating their funds after they demanded he return their money in recent years, according to at least four lawsuits filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. The SEC declined to comment this week on whether the agency is looking into the civil allegations raised against Jacobus, a longtime investment advisor who records show has not been licensed in Florida since 2021.
Among Jacobus’ victims: a renowned sculptor, a plastic surgeon, and a wealthy businessman who owns a crane business, all from Venezuela, according to court records.
“They were all foreigners who trusted Andrew Jacobus,” said Miami lawyer Clarissa Rodriguez, who is representing two of his investors in one lawsuit and estimates she has been contacted by 15 others considering legal action against him. “He capitalized on the fact that they all had confidence in the U.S. financial system and in him. He took advantage of them.”
Jacobus, 62, who property records show lives in a $5 million condo in a Coconut Grove high-rise overlooking Biscayne Bay, did not return calls or emails to comment for this story. In September, Jacobus reached settlements for about $18.5 million and $650,000 involving two investment victims from Venezuela, according to court records. After those two settlements, court records show his defense lawyer stopped representing him after Rodriguez’ clients filed their case last month accusing the investment advisor of theft.
Rodriguez’ clients, Beatriz Aleman, an investment manager herself, and her husband, James Mathison, a sculptor whose work has been exhibited at shows in Miami, Venezuela and Europe, have had an investment relationship with Jacobus dating back to 2012.
In their lawsuit, the couple say that they invested about $2 million with Jacobus through last fall and Aleman herself referred more than 20 investors to him over the past decade.
The couple’s lawyer said that before filing suit, she sent a letter to Jacobus demanding that he return the couple’s money — but he refused. The couple pursued legal action against Jacobus after they initially asked him to turn over about $760,000 in savings that he invested with the discount online firm, Interactive Brokers.
According to the couple’s suit, Aleman grew suspicious of Jacobus when she asked him to transfer $200,000 from her Interactive account to her bank in May 2023.
In an email, Aleman gave him instructions on where to wire the money, but Jacobus gave her excuses about transferring it, according to the suit. She then asked for a conference call with Jacobus, and he responded in an email that he was tired of repeating himself “ad nauseum” on the phone about the reasons for the delay. But they had never talked on the phone about the money transfer, leading Aleman to believe Jacobus “gaslighted” her, according to the couple’s suit.
Aleman learned from Interactive that her log in credentials no longer existed and that the email address on file for her account had been changed to Jacobus’, the suit states. She found out that “Jacobus had cleaned out her account,” leaving Aleman with only $15,000 in savings at Interactive. A representative told Aleman that the monthly statements Jacobus had sent her showing her savings intact were “fake.”
On June 21, 2023, Jacobus admitted that he took her money for his own personal needs.
“I want to begin this note by asking for your forgiveness,” Jacobus emailed Aleman in Spanish, which was translated in the couple’s court filing. “I needed to make an urgent payment and without consulting you first, I boldly borrowed funds in your account at Interactive, with all the intention of returning them to you with a 15% return and without causing you any loss.”
Aleman and her husband, Mathison, never got back their money, according to their lawyer, Rodriguez.
The first two cases accusing Jacobus of fraud and other civil violations were brought last year by Miami attorney Michael Padula, a former prosecutor at the Justice Department and U.S. Attorney’s Office who had focused on white-collar crime. Padula’s two cases filed in Miami, in which he accused Jacobus of running a “Ponzi scheme” by using newer investors’ money to pay off older ones, caught the attention of other Venezuelans who invested millions of dollars with Jacobus.
In September, Padula’s clients, Fermin Suarez, a wealthy Venezuelan crane business owner, and Tubalcain Morales, who resides in Venezuela and Spain, reached respective settlements with Jacobus totaling about $18.5 million and $650,000, according to court records.
But recovering their funds from him could prove difficult — though Jacobus may be keeping millions of dollars in an HSBC account outside the United States, Padula said.
Padula said he plans to file at least two more lawsuits on behalf of other investors with Jacobus.
“I am also working with other investors who have similarly been taken advantage of by Mr. Jacobus,” Padula said. “I’m hopeful that the [Miami-Dade] court will continue to hold this company and Mr. Jacobus accountable for their misdeeds, and I will continue to pursue justice for my client as well as others who were preyed upon.”
Another investor with Jacobus, Manuel Egea, a plastic surgeon residing in Venezuela, has also filed suit in Miami, claiming he has invested his “life savings” of about $9.5 million with him. The surgeon’s money was mostly placed in fixed-income investment funds that regularly yielded substantial monthly returns for years, his lawsuit states. But earlier this year, Egea claims in his suit, the payments stopped.
“Since March 2023, [Egea] has made several written requests to withdraw portions of [his] investment,” the suit states. “Despite the various requests, [Jacobus and his company] have refused to transfer any of [Egea’s] money, without justification.”
