(Courtesy: Miami Dade Corrections)
(MIAMI, FL) – Five current and former members of Florida’s largest homeowners association, the Hammocks Homeowners Association, are being charged in a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme.
According to investigators, the five members were arrested for allegedly stealing up to $4 million from over 18,000 residents. The Hammocks Community Association oversees 40 communities in over 6,000 units in West Kendall.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said there were millions of dollars in “questionable expenses” and she expects to make more arrests during this ongoing investigation.
On Tuesday officials arrested former HOA president Marglli Gallego and her husband, Jose Antonio Gonzalez, as well as current HOA president Monica Isabel Ghilardi, board member Myriam Arango Rodgers and former board member Yoleidis Lopez Garcia.
“Racketeering and money laundering are terms we usually associate with drug cartels”… “Never would anyone have connected such serious criminal allegations to one of the largest homeowner associations in Florida,” said Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle.
The members who have been arrested are accused of using the HOA’s fees for their own personal use for years, investigators say.
If convicted the defendants face maximum sentences of between 15 and 150 years in prison.