Feds break up Homestead mother-son team who ran $37 million mini-bank out of home
A mother and her son pretended to be in the construction business, the feds say.
But they were really running a mini-bank out of a Homestead residence that catered to local contractors that hired illegal immigrants as workers and paid them cash under the table, according to authorities.
Over the past eight years, the mother-son team operated an illegal $37 million check-cashing business while providing employee payroll services for numerous Miami-Dade construction firms and charging them huge fees, according to a criminal complaint filed by federal prosecutors in Miami.
Anneri Sagrario Izurieta, 60, a lawful U.S. resident from Honduras, was ordered detained on Tuesday after a Miami federal magistrate judge found she was a flight risk to her native country — although assistant federal public defender Christian Dunham argued she should be given a bond like her son and released before trial.
“Despite Ms. Izurieta having strong familial and community ties in Florida ... Ms. Izurieta has equally strong ties in Honduras as she has an established residence in Honduras, has a Honduran bank account, and regularly visits Honduras,” Magistrate Judge Enjolique A. Lett wrote in a detention order, noting that the mother also had a prior criminal history.
Her son, Joseph Abdel Navarro Verde, 33, a U.S. citizen, was granted a $200,000 personal surety bond and released from detention under an agreement last week between federal prosecutor Ana Martinez and his defense lawyer, Juan Berrio.
Both the mother and son face arraignment this month on an indictment expected to charge them with conspiring to conduct an unlicensed money transmitting business and related offenses.
Operated out of Homestead home
Izurieta and Navarro operated a couple of illicit check-cashing businesses out of the mother’s Homestead residence, according to a Homeland Security Investigations complaint and affidavit.
JANV Construction Services, LLC, which was incorporated in March 2017, maintained a website that purported to be in the construction business, the affidavit says. But federal agents discovered that numerous construction firms were actually writing checks to JANV, and the company would cash them at local banks while charging fees of at least a 5% for its services.
In turn, the construction firms used the cash to pay their workers, who did not have proper immigration papers, authorities said. In doing so, the employers avoided paying Social Security and other payroll taxes as well as workers’ compensation insurance.
As part of the scheme, “Izurieta also would at times drive to pick up checks from construction companies,” according to the affidavit. “Also, representatives from construction companies would drive to Izurieta’s home” in Homestead.
More than $32 million in checks
Izurieta and Navarro deposited construction business checks totaling more than $32 million into JANV’s accounts at Truist Bank, TD Bank and Regions Bank between mid-2016 and November 2024, the affidavit says.
Of that total, they deposited checks worth about $17 million into JANV’s bank accounts between January 2020 and November 2024. They and other family members then withdrew more than $11 million in cash from those accounts.
During that period, about $700,000 was transferred to JANV’s bank account in Honduras, according to the affidavit. Most of the remaining JANV funds were transferred to the personal bank accounts of Izurieta, Navarro and their spouses.
The mother and son used another business, Every Construction Services, in a similar way, the affidavit says. Izurieta and Navarro deposited more than $5.3 million in checks into their ECS account at TD Bank and cashed out about $4 million.
The deposits into the ECS account included checks from construction firms as well as transfers from the family’s business, JANV.
As part of the conspiracy, Izurieta cashed a JANV check payable to herself for $14,900 on Aug. 2, 2024, the affidavit says. And on Nov. 12, 2024, Navarro signed his name on a Regions Bank withdrawal slip for $15,000 in cash.
The mother-son team’s financial scheme is hardly an anomaly in South Florida, where the region’s boom cycles in development and construction fuel the so-called shadow banking industry.
For example, Evelio Suarez was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2019 after pleading guilty to operating a trio of check-cashing stores in Hialeah that processed more than $150 million in checks for sketchy customers who couldn’t show their faces in a traditional bank, according to court records. Scofflaws involved construction, healthcare, tax and mortgage rackets turned to him, paying a hefty fee for his services.
They depended on Suarez as their money man because they paid undocumented construction workers in cash to avoid paying federal taxes and workers’ compensation insurance or operated pharmacies in other people’s names while falsely billing Medicare.
Suarez learned the ropes of shadow banking during the real estate boom in the 2000 era while working for La Bamba, a chain of check-cashing stores that was once a sponsor of the Miami Heat.
Suarez’s former boss at La Bamba, Juan Rene Caro, was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2009 for masterminding what a judge described as a “shadow banking industry” that caused “great harm” to American taxpayers by helping local construction companies cash checks without disclosing their real identities. La Bamba’s scheme enabled the companies to evade payroll and corporate taxes.
This story was originally published March 5, 2025 at 4:58 PM.
