Puerto Rico bank chairman jailed 62 months for $23.6m fraud hidden from board
The week's clearest financial-crime enforcement action is a US sentencing that turns on a single control failure: related-party transactions routed through a bank's own governance channels rather than around them. We pair it with AMLA's Frankfurt roundtables on simplified customer due diligence, where the EU's diligence floor is being framed now, and a DOJ plea exposing a branded money-mule network.
- Ramirez was sentenced on 7 October 2026 to 62 months, three years of supervised release and forfeiture of approximately $13.6 million after pleading guilty in September 2025 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
- From 2017 to 2023 he concealed insider transactions from the bank's board, executives and regulator OCIF, causing the bank to lose at least $23,613,371.
- The scheme used sham investments, 47 promissory notes totalling approximately $25.3 million, and an unauthorised $26 million loan-portfolio purchase executed as liquidation loomed.
- AMLA will hold sectoral roundtables on simplified customer due diligence in Frankfurt between 9 November and 2 December 2026, with expressions of interest due 18 October 2026 at 23h59 CEST.
- A DOJ plea disclosed this week revealed a money-laundering network branded "Your Mule Cashout."