Miami money adviser accused of swindling $94 million from Venezuelans, Catholic groups

MIAMI — An investment adviser who lives in a Coconut Grove luxury high-rise condo was arrested Thursday on charges of operating a Ponzi scheme and swindling tens of millions of dollars from Venezuelan investors and two Catholic dioceses in the South American country, according to a federal indictment.

Andrew H. Jacobus “induced” dozens of Venezuelans living in South Florida and abroad to sink $94 million into investments that he stole from their accounts over the past two decades, according to the wire-fraud and money-laundering indictment filed in Miami federal court in July.

Jacobus, who operated two investment businesses, Finser International Corp. and Kronus Financial Corp., promised yearly investment returns of 12% to 15% on certificates of deposit and other fixed-income securities as he secretly fleeced investors until some got wise to him in 2023 and complained to federal authorities, the indictment says.

“As a result, Jacobus had to use new investor funds to pay existing investors their promised returns to conceal the Ponzi scheme and the actual performance of the investments with the companies,” according to the indictment filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Moore.

Jacobus, 64, could not be reached for comment because he’s being held at the Federal Detention Center in Miami. No defense lawyer was listed for him on the court docket.

In addition to the indictment, the Securities and Exchange Commission also recently sued Jacobus and his companies, alleging he committed the same fraud scheme in a civil lawsuit.

The Venezuelan investors — 10 people are listed by their initials and two others as faith-based organizations in the indictment — turned to the United States as a safe haven to protect their money as their country economically collapsed during the administrations of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.

In recent years, several investors sued Jacobus and his firm, accusing them of fraud and civil theft involving tens of millions of dollars, according to civil court filings. They also notified the SEC, 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 Corp., managed about $79 million in investment funds.

Jacobus’ investors 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.

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.

Records show that 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 said they invested about $2 million with Jacobus through the fall of 2022 and Aleman herself referred more than 20 investors to him over the past decade.

The couple’s lawyer, Clarissa Rodriguez, 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 in 2022 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.

Padula’s clients, Fermin Suarez, a wealthy Venezuelan crane business owner, and Tubalcain Morales, who lives 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 proved difficult, Padula said.

Another investor with Jacobus, Manuel Egea, a plastic surgeon residing in Venezuela, has also filed suit in Miami, claiming he 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 in 2023, 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.”