Tomás Niembro Concha
Introduction
Tomás Niembro Concha, 64, a Spanish and Venezuelan national and the former chief executive officer of Nodus International Bank, a Puerto Rican international bank, was sentenced to 112 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release for leading a scheme to fraudulently obtain at least $24.9 million from the bank and conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions against Venezuela. He was also ordered to forfeit over $16.9 million, representing the value of proceeds he derived from the wire-fraud conspiracy, per the Justice Department’s September 21, 2026 announcement. The prosecution is part of the Homeland Security Task Force initiative established by Executive Order 14159.
Background Information
On March 19, 2026, Niembro pleaded guilty to a two-count information charging conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. According to court filings, Niembro conspired with others to siphon money from Nodus Bank, ultimately leading to the bank’s failure in 2023. He and his co-conspirators concealed from other board members, executives, and the bank’s regulator — Puerto Rico’s Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions (OCIF) — that certain investments and loans were for the benefit of Niembro and Board Chairman Juan Ramirez, in violation of Puerto Rican law. Ramirez, whose own case the site documents separately, was sentenced in the related prosecution announced in October 2026.
From 2017 to 2023, Niembro, Ramirez, and others caused Nodus Bank to invest $11 million in a Miami-based lender so those funds could be loaned to Niembro and Ramirez for their own benefit. Between January 2018 and September 2021, the two men also fraudulently induced the bank’s board and comptroller to agree to buy at least 47 promissory notes totaling approximately $25.3 million from Nodus Finance, a Miami-based company that Niembro and Ramirez jointly owned, so they could use the proceeds for themselves.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Convicted and sentenced. Niembro pleaded guilty to wire-fraud conspiracy and IEEPA conspiracy and received a 112-month term with a $16.9 million forfeiture.
The bank’s collapse came in stages documented in the filings: in early March 2023, OCIF notified Nodus Bank it would be placed into liquidation. Niembro and Ramirez then fraudulently caused the bank to accept a loan portfolio from Nodus Finance to pay down the debt from the 47 promissory notes — the depositors’ institution absorbing its executives’ self-dealing as it failed. The $24.9 million fraud total and the $16.9 million forfeiture together frame what the scheme extracted from the bank before its liquidation.
The sanctions-evasion count covered a second scheme: between 2021 and 2023, Niembro conspired with others to conduct prohibited financial transactions with an individual designated as a Specially Designated National by OFAC for providing material support to Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. To satisfy an outstanding loan of approximately $2.5 million that the SDN’s company had with the bank before sanctions, Niembro and the SDN devised a scheme to cause Nodus Bank to foreclose on the SDN’s home in Southampton, New York — for which they obtained OFAC authorization — but separately reached a “private” agreement to induce the bank to sell the property back to the SDN for $4 million through a front company, a transaction strictly prohibited by U.S. sanctions and not otherwise licensed by OFAC.
Public Reaction and Consequences
“The defendant abused his position with Nodus Bank to commit fraud for his own enrichment and to willfully evade sanctions on a designated individual,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “When individuals who are supposed to serve as gatekeepers to our financial system choose to abuse that trust and instead use their access to facilitate crimes, the Criminal Division will hold them accountable.”
“The defendant’s scheme didn’t stop at fraud; it extended into conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions designed to protect our national security,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Charles Miller of IRS Criminal Investigation’s Florida Field Office. IRS-CI investigated with support from OCIF and the Treasury Executive Office for Asset Forfeiture. Trial Attorneys Javier Urbina and Samir Paul of the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Felipe Plechac-Diaz for the Southern District of Florida prosecuted the case.
Current Status
Niembro is serving the 112-month sentence, with three years of supervised release to follow and the $16.9 million forfeiture ordered against him. His March 19, 2026 guilty plea resolved the two-count information — wire-fraud conspiracy and IEEPA conspiracy — and the sentencing closes the CEO’s chapter of the Nodus Bank prosecution. The bank itself failed in 2023 and was placed into liquidation by OCIF, the outcome the filings tie to the scheme. The case was prosecuted through the Bank Integrity Unit of the Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Niembro’s banking career ended with the institution he ran: Nodus Bank failed, and its former CEO now holds a nine-plus-year federal sentence, a three-year supervised-release term, and a $16.9 million forfeiture judgment as the documented price of the scheme. The sanctions-evasion conviction adds a national-security dimension to the fraud — a foreclosed Southampton home secretly sold back through a front company to a PDVSA-linked designee — and the case stands in the Homeland Security Task Force’s record as the prosecution of a financial gatekeeper who, in the Justice Department’s framing, used his access to facilitate crimes rather than prevent them.