The Miami 'Condo' in the US $ 1,200 Million Case of PDVSA Is a Retreat for the (very) Rich and (not so) Famous

Since its opening in 2017, the Porsche Design Tower quickly became a symbol of luxury and ostentation in South Florida. Magnates from all over the world retreat behind the discretion of its tinted glass windows and virtually anonymous legal entities. But in recent days, two police investigations into illegal financial flows from abroad placed the building under an inconvenient spotlight. The justice just seized an apartment of over five million dollars from a Venezuelan agent.
It
is no small thing that the Porsche Design Tower stands out in the real estate
market in the imaginary of both the inhabitants and tourists who visit the
metropolitan area of Miami. In that area of South Florida, buildings of Zaha
Hadid, Bjarke Ingels, Rem Koolhaas and the duo of the Swiss Herzog and De
Meuron, i.e. a virtual super league of the most renowned architects in the
world, are being erected or have already been built. In the midst of so much
competition, the expressionless, almost Spartan black cylinder, nestled on the
sands of Sunny Isles, northeast of Miami-Dade County, has earned a position on
its own merits.
Such
merits may not be exactly - or exclusively - design, despite its name. The
roller with stained-glass facade, 60 floors and almost 200 meters high contrasts
like a tube of twilight next to the characteristic Caribbean luminosity of the
coast.
As
the first Porsche-branded building, and Miami probably being the place of the
planet with the highest density of Porsche cars on the streets, the promoters of
the work have endeavored to turn it into a synonym of ostentation and
exclusivity.
New
Yorker singer Alicia Keys performed at the opening gala of the residential tower
in March 2017. The penthouse for sale has an asking price of 32 million dollars
in the market; the other almost 800-square meter penthouse, PH1, was acquired on
the same month of the opening of the condominium
by Terry Taylor, a tycoon of car dealers of the neighboring city of Daytona, for
25 million dollars.
Each apartment terrace has a heated pool. A huge refrigerated
wine storage cellar is available to tenants in the ground floor restaurant
areas, which have an exclusive chef. When visitors leave the car to valet
parking, they can take one of the many Norwegian-based brand Voss
water bottles from a cooler of colossal dimensions, free of charge. But the most
distinctive feature of the building, for which it has earned reviews in many
media and almost amusement-park certificates, is its car lift. Through a refined
installation of mechanical parking -the test of which alone had a cost of 40
million dollars in Germany - tenants can go with their luxurious cars right into
the living room of their apartments. After
all, it is a building built by car lovers with car lovers in mind, endorsed by a
car make. But
this building, built expressly with the purpose of leaving its tenants
speechless, has gained a new and unwanted notoriety in recent
weeks.
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Unwanted Attention
Last
May, its promoters were linked to a scheme of tax evasion and irregular payments
uncovered by the Brazilian police. The
Operation Miami Connection allowed
the Brazilian authorities to detect the offshore structure whereby a group of
investors from the State of Santa Catarina paid for the Porsche license to name
a luxury residential project.
And
then the condominium was mentioned again in a criminal complaint document filed
on July 23 with the Federal Criminal Court of the Southern District of Florida.
After more than two years of investigations, the agents of the Homeland Security
Investigations Office (HSI) completed the Money
Flight
Operation, whereby they dismantled a network that laundered money illegally
extracted from the coffers of the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA, and
circulated in part through bank accounts in the United States of
America.
The
mechanism revealed by the detectives included a collusion agreement between
Pdvsa executives and Venezuelan financiers, whereby they offered loans in
bolivars to Pdvsa to be reimbursed within strict time limit and in foreign
currency, dollars or euros, at the official exchange rate. The exchange
differential in each transaction gave profits of up to ten times the capital
invested, from which the respective bids were paid to authorities of the state
holding company and intermediaries that conceived and managed formulas to
incorporate those funds into the banking system. According to the investigation,
up to 1.2 billion dollars were thus
legitimized.

In
the midst of that plot appears apartment 2205 of the Porsche Design Tower,
currently
subject to seizure along with another 16 luxury
properties
in South Florida.
Based
on the written statement of Special Agent George F. Fernandez on behalf of the
HSI, in May 2016, Carmelo Urdaneta Aquí, identified in the testimony as legal
adviser to the Minister of Energy and Mines of Venezuela, was negotiating the
purchase of that residential unit. To close the business, he rushed agent Jose
Vicente Chente Amparan Croquer, another Venezuelan who - posing as a real estate
investor and through contracts for the fictitious purchase of financial papers -
set in motion the structure that allowed washing the funds. Amparan would get
the money to complete the purchase. In between, Urdaneta agreed to transfer the
apartment to Amparan Croquer as part of the payment for his financial management
services. Thus, apartment 2205 of the Porsche Design Tower, of almost 300 square
meters (3230 sq ft), for sale at 5.3 million dollars, ended up in the hands of
Paladium Real Estate Group LLC, ran by Carolina Croquer de González, a relative
of Amparan.
Bling Ring
The
episode highlighted that the Porsche Design Tower its excess, is no place for
ordinary tenants. In fact, it is for rich people, very rich people that love the
most dramatic luxury, but at the same time require the necessary discretion to
enjoy it.
Even
the promoters of the residential complex have a controversial profile. Father
and son, Michael and Gil Dezer - Dezertov is the original surname of the
patriarch native of Israel - lead 18555 Developers Inc, the sales company of the
tower. The Florida press calls them super developers. Their ventures are never
modest. For years, Michael Dezer was partner of current US president Donald
Trump. Gil has recognized that Trump is the model on which he has built his own
business style. Very close to the Porsche Design Tower, on Sunny Island ?that
section of the Atlantic coast between Miami Beach and the favorite adventure
city of the Jewish community and the Russian oligarchs, where many store
marquees are in Cyrillic?, both had developed the Trump Tower III project,
another luxury condo. All in all, the Dezers do not trust Trump. According to
reporter Jerry Lanelli of the Miami New Times (https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/michael-dezer-worried-trump-would-ask-him-for-money-10671517),
Michael Dezer affirmed during a statement before the investigators of a case of
corruption in 2016, that he learned never to speak of "personal matters" with
Trump, because he always feared that he would ask for
money.
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In
a recent interview with Pablo de Llano, correspondent in Miami of El País de Madrid newspaper
(https://elpais.com/internacional/2018/07/29/estados_unidos/1532891182_409144.html),
Gil Dezer tried to outline, without leaking many information, who were the
residents of his exclusive project. "Great executives, celebrities, a singer
that you hear all the time on the radio. There's a guy who is president of a
drink you often drink, a video-poker mogul or a guy who had a Nike factory in
Argentina, sold the company and retired." In case of the latter, Dezer
apparently referred to Juan Pablo Verdiquio, owner of apartment 1205, who led
the Extreme Gear sports shoes factory in Argentina. Another magnate, the Mexican
Carlos Peralta Quintero, founder of the Iusa group, has a residence in the
complex.
In
the listing, typical of a sales flyer, there are noteworthy absences. In any
case, it is understandable why Dezer failed to mention a few. Andrea Romanello,
the daughter of an alleged New York mafia boss is also among the owners
(https://therealdeal.com/miami/2017/01/04/daughter-of-alleged-mobster-and-her-husband-pay-5-2m-for-unit-at-porsche-design/);
the founder of the telegenic Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Brazil,
Edir Macedo, El Obispo (https://therealdeal.com/miami/2016/12/05/brazilian-media-mogul-the-bishop-among-buyers-at-porsche-design/);
Germán Rosete, the mysterious Mexican boyfriend of a former Puerto Rican Miss
Universe; or René Gioia, a Brazilian lawyer finger-pointed in 1997 as part of a
money laundering case.
Most
units are owned by legal entities, many of them incorporated as Limited
Liability Companies (LLC), a category created in Florida specifically to
encourage the registration of companies with non-contributing foreign
shareholders. Certainly, against the majority fraction of foreign investors, the
US owners in the Porsche Design Tower are in a minority.
Of
the 132 apartments listed in the online registry of the Miami-Dade Property
Appraiser, at least twelve are recognizable as property of Venezuelan customers
(at least, because several units are controlled by offshore structures that
refer to jurisdictions like Saint Kitts-Nevis, Cyprus, British Virgin Islands or
Delaware, the beneficiaries of which could not be identified for this
issue).
It
is the second nationality with the greatest presence among the owners of this
extreme luxury condominium, right before the Brazilians (19) and on par with the
Russians (12). The finding is surprising, given the acute socio-economic crisis
that the country is going through, which is throwing out hundreds or thousands
of refugees abroad every day.
With
the new exposure that the Money Flight case offered to this fantastic building,
the question about what other Venezuelans own apartments is now on the
spotlight. The attached infographic answers it.