Former UBS adviser pleads guilty to $5.8 million fraud

German Nino, a former UBS adviser in Miami, Florida, has pled guilty in federal court to defrauding $5.8 million from a family who maintained several accounts at the firm. He is scheduled for sentencing on June 21 and faces up to 60 years imprisonment.

According to an SEC civil case and a parallel criminal case brought in January, the Weston, Florida, resident made a total of 62 unauthorized transfers from three UBS accounts belonging to the victims from about May 2014 to February 2020. To accomplish the wire fraud scheme, Nino made materially false and fraudulent statements to his victims and concealed and omitted material facts including misrepresenting the true performance, balance and rate of return of the accounts he managed,

He also forged the signature of his clients on documents purporting to authorize transfers out of the accounts; prepared a fraudulent land purchase contract and forged a victim’s signature on the land purchase contract to make it appear that the victim was purchasing land in Colombia by using money from the victim’s account; and removed one of the victim’s email address from the victim’s UBS email account profile so that the victim would not receive email notifications from UBS about unauthorized transfers.

Nino also prepared fraudulent UBS account statements and client review statements, which falsely inflated the balance and value of the victims’ accounts.