Nodus Bank's chairman looted $23.6M from his own bank — 62 months

On 7 October 2026, Juan Francisco Ramirez, 60, the former board chairman and co-owner of Nodus International Bank — a Puerto Rican international banking entity — was sentenced to 62 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to forfeit approximately $13.6 million for leading a scheme that fraudulently obtained more than $23.6 million from the bank he was trusted to run.

From 2017 to 2023, Ramirez conspired with others to invest more than $11 million of Nodus Bank's funds in a Miami-based lender so it could loan that money to Ramirez and a co-conspirator for their own benefit. The prohibited insider transactions were disguised: the bank made sham investments in the lending entity, and the scheme was concealed from other board members, executives, and the bank's regulator, the Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions of Puerto Rico (OCIF), in violation of Puerto Rican law and Nodus Bank's own insider-transaction policy.

Prosecutors said the scheme caused nearly $24 million in losses and contributed to the bank's collapse, leaving innocent depositors without their savings. 'Ramirez was entrusted to lead a bank. Instead, he looted it,' said US Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones. Ramirez had pleaded guilty in September 2025 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

As chairman and co-owner, Ramirez sat on both sides of the transactions — proposing the investments that benefited him and approving the oversight of them.

The Miami lender structure made self-dealing look like ordinary investing, and sham bank investments in the lender buried the connection.

Concealment ran all the way to the top of oversight: fellow board members, the comptroller and the regulator OCIF were all kept in the dark.

The losses stacked past the bank's ability to absorb them, and when it went under, the depositors — not the looter — were first to feel it.

An owner-controlled bank can hide insider loans in plain sight: board approval and regulator oversight only work when the paperwork is honest.

Sentenced 7 October 2026 to 62 months in prison with three years of supervised release and approximately $13.6 million in forfeiture, following his September 2025 guilty plea to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.