For nearly six years, a UBS financial advisor allegedly used unauthorized transfers of money from one family’s accounts to buy things for several women who were his romantic partners.
The gifts to the tune of $4.6 million included vacations, luxury cars, private school tuition and an apartment in Colombia, according to investigators. After the clients, the firm and regulators caught on to the scam, German Nino still somehow managed to get his wife’s signature in order to be released on bond after FBI agents arrested him on Jan. 24, court documents show.
Nino, 56, now
“It’s troubling because, at the end of the day, with all of the compliance that we have in the United States and all of the regulatory framework that we have, how does this type of stuff go on undetected?” Singer said. “You’ve got to wonder from a compliance department perspective at UBS, what do they do to check up on their high-profile advisors?”
The case follows the disturbing patterns of other fraud cases in which advisors have allegedly
“Ensuring the safety of assets our customers entrust to us is always paramount,” spokesman Huw Williams said in a statement. “UBS has compensated the affected customers for any losses from their UBS accounts.”
Attorneys representing Nino didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The 24-year industry veteran joined UBS in 2012 after tenures with Merrill Lynch, A.G. Edwards & Sons, Atlas One Financial Group and HSBC Securities USA, according to BrokerCheck. His record displays no disclosures prior to the massive felony fraud case.
A married couple and their son who began taking a more active role in their finances in 2016 received fictitious investment statements and doctored UBS documents that concealed the unauthorized transfers from their holdings into a bank account that Nino maintained separately from his “marital” ones, according to investigators. In addition, he forged their signatures on letters of authorization for the transfers, investigators say. He made 62 unauthorized transfers from three UBS accounts between May 2014 and February 2020, according to the feds.
To keep the scheme in motion, Nino inflated the value of the clients’ portfolios and once made it appear as if one of the victims was buying land in Columbia out of their account, investigators say. They didn’t go into much detail on the purchases for Nino’s paramours, beyond stating that he used the money he pledged to invest on their behalf for “gifts and travel and living expenses for women with whom he had romantic relationships,” according to the SEC complaint.
The son began confronting Nino at the beginning of 2020 about discrepancies in one of the accounts, according to the SEC. Nino admitted he had stolen from the family but promised to pay it back through a signing bonus from joining a new firm, the complaint states. The victim alerted UBS, which launched an investigation, according to the document. Rather than sitting for an interview, Nino simply resigned from the firm, the document states.
"As a financial advisor, Nino was entrusted with millions of dollars belonging to his client," Eric Bustillo, director of the SEC's Miami Regional Office, said in a statement. "Nino took advantage of that trust by abusing his access to his client’s accounts for personal gain."
While Nino hasn’t entered a plea in the case and representatives for the Miami U.S. Attorney’s Office didn’t respond to a request to know whether plea deal negotiations are underway, the fact that the criminal charging document is a “federal information” rather than an indictment or a complaint means there’s likely going to be a settlement, according to Singer. Authorities use those documents when “a prosecutor has a defendant who pretty much knows that he's screwed,” Singer said.
“You will plead to the information. You'll essentially waive grand jury indictment,” he said. “Pursuant to the information, you're going to be agreeable to the court sentencing.”
A judge released Nino on a bond of $650,000, with his spouse signing one of the court documents in Miami federal court, the records show. Under the conditions of the agreement, he can’t leave the Southern or Middle District of Florida, he must surrender his U.S. and Colombian passports, he must submit to substance abuse treatment or testing and he can’t work in financial services with the pending case. He’s slated to be arraigned in federal court on Feb. 7.
