AVENTURA, Fla. — Two brothers from Aventura are accused of running an investment scam that bilked at least four victims out of nearly $1 million; investigators said they used the funds to finance a “lavish” South Florida lifestyle.
Aventura police arrested Hugo Leonel Amaya, 44, and Enmanuel Armando Amaya, 48, on three felony charges on Thursday. According to arrest reports, the pair, born in New York, lived together in a luxury high-rise on the exclusive Williams Island.
Authorities said the first victim to report the fraud was a man who works on the property.
According to an arrest report from the Aventura Police Department, he told detectives that the pair approached him as he cleaned windows at the resident gate on Oct. 19, 2023 and “offered him an opportunity to make extra money by investing in a property that they planned to buy and sell.”
Police said the brothers told the worker he’d get a 10% return on his investment and “after (being) provided with photos of properties local and out of state, he agreed to invest $30,000.”
Authorities said a week later, he wired the money and was promised a return 45 days later. But four months passed with no money.
According to the report, in March 2024, Hugo Amaya “apologized for the delay” and gave him $3,500 and told him the money was now being invested in a property in Mexico.
By June 2024, the victim was asking for his money back, police said, and Hugo Amaya told him he’d have it within “a few days.”
“For the following seven months, (he) continued giving excuses until communication stopped completely” on Jan. 31, the report states.
Authorities said the worker pointed police to a second victim who invested $200,000 and received a similar runaround, and bank records from one of the brothers’ companies, HLA Investments, pointed detectives to additional victims.
According to police, one victim told detectives that Enmanuel Amaya “claimed to be ill and hospitalized” when asked about returning funds that had supposedly been invested in a property in Stuart.
Another victim told investigators that he did some research after he gave the pair $140,000 to invest in a property in Cleveland and discovered that the owner never even sold the house, the report states.
Police said “at no point” did either brother invest the $920,000 they scammed from the four known victims.
“Instead, the money received was observed being used to pay their American Express high-end credit cards, buy airplane tickets, rent high end vehicles, buy expensive clothing, eat at expensive restaurants and live a lavish (lifestyle),” the arrest report states.
Police arrested the brothers at their unit at 2800 Island Blvd. on Thursday.
Both face charges of grand theft, organized scheme to defraud and securities fraud.
The two were each being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on $35,000 bonds. A judge ordered that if they post the bonds, they’ll have to prove the funds came from a legitimate source.
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