WASHINGTON — A former top broker in Puerto Rico for the Swiss banking giant UBS was sentenced to a year and a day in prison Tuesday, months after he pleaded guilty to criminal bank fraud for pocketing $1 million in commissions in a scheme that saw many investors lose their life savings.
Ramirez, who is known to many in Puerto Rico as"The Whopper" pleaded guilty in November 2018 for his role in a scheme to fraudulently obtain and misuse credit lines to purchase securities. Ramirez has been the only person prosecuted for the involvement in the scheme to date. The sales generated commissions when the credit lines were drawn down at UBS's Utah subsidiary and then again when the clients used the money to invest in the closed end funds managed by Ramirez.
By 2012, UBS investors on the island had about $10 billion invested in the funds, or roughly 10 percent of the island's gross domestic product. In response to these allegations, a spokesman from UBS said:"In its sentencing papers, the DOJ described Mr. Ramirez's offense as 'brazen', found that he took various steps to 'circumvent' UBS controls and to 'obscure' from UBS what he was doing, and found that Mr. Ramirez 'took advantage of all parties involved.' In light of these findings, Mr.