Bienvenido “Benny” Benach, Jr., Ramon Puentes, Danny Flores, Rolando Alfonso, Jorge Nobrega, Jorge Arrieta, Sebastian Kishinevsky, and Adriana Cruz, have been charged in a 5 count indictment for a bank fraud scheme that resulted in the approval and disbursement of two home equity loans, totaling approximately $1 million. As alleged in the indictment, the scheme was directed at Bank of America and Wachovia. The defendants have been charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud, and aggravated identity theft, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1349, 1344 and 1028A. All of the defendants have made their initial appearances before a Magistrate Judge and the case will be set for trial by the District Court Judge presiding over the matter.

According to the indictment, Benach, Puentes, Flores and Alfonso decided to submit simultaneous applications for fraudulent home equity lines of credit (“HELOCs”) to Bank of America and Wachovia for the total amount of $1 million, requesting $500,000 from each bank. Each HELOC application listed Benach’s mother-in-law as the purported borrower, and a home owned by Benach’s mother-in-law as the collateral. To prepare and process the HELOC applications, Benach’s mother-in-law’s name and social security number were used without her knowledge, input or authority.

Flores and Alfonso submitted the fraudulent Bank of America HELOC application to Arrieta, a personal banker at Bank of America, and gave the fraudulent Wachovia HELOC application to Kishinevsky, a financial specialist at Wachovia. For a fee, each bank insider agreed to process the fraudulent HELOC. At the time of the submission of the fraudulent HELOC applications, neither bank was made aware of the other pending HELOC application. After the HELOC at each bank was funded and the funds were made available, the defendants disbursed and shared the fraudulently obtained loan proceeds, receiving in total approximately $800,000.