Miami Drug Company CEO Guilty of Fraud So Large He Crashed a Puerto Rican Bank
Westernbank used to be one of the largest financial institutions in Puerto Rico. It once employed 1,500 people.
But it took just one man to take down the San Juan-based bank. In 2010, a Key Biscayne resident named Jack Kachkar ended its operation with a $142 million fraud scheme, prosecutors say. From 2005 to 2007, Kachkar's pharmaceutical company, Inyx, allegedly faked paperwork that convinced Westernbank to loan him $142 million. On Monday, a federal court found Kachkar guilty of eight counts of wire fraud affecting a financial institution.
“Jack Kachkar’s fraud caused substantial harm to the 1,500 employees of Westernbank and the people of Puerto Rico,” Ariana Fajardo Orshan, chief federal prosecutor for the Southern District of Florida, said in a media release. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office remains committed to the prosecution of those individuals and corporations that use Miami and other South Florida communities as their base to operate multinational fraud schemes.” (The Miami Herald first reported the conviction.)
But before becoming internationally famous for stealing huge sums of money, Kachkar was a wannabe sports team owner. In 2007, he tried to buy a majority stake in the French soccer club Olympique de Marseille, one of the most popular and storied football squads in Europe. Kachkar nearly succeeded — the French press reported he even danced with the team's players inside the Marseille locker room at one point. He'd offered the team's then-majority shareholder, Robert Louis-Dreyfus (a second cousin of Seinfeld and Veep star Julia Louis-Dreyfus), 180 million Canadian dollars for a controlling interest in the team.
Read more: https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/jack-kachkar-guilty-of-fraud-that-crashed-puerto-ricos-westernbank-11074453
