{"id":6679,"date":"2018-11-21T12:57:12","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T18:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/?p=6679"},"modified":"2018-11-21T12:57:12","modified_gmt":"2018-11-21T18:57:12","slug":"ex-ubs-puerto-rico-broker-jose-whopper-ramirez-pleads-guilty-to-bank-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/ex-ubs-puerto-rico-broker-jose-whopper-ramirez-pleads-guilty-to-bank-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-UBS Puerto Rico Broker Jose \u201cWhopper\u201d Ramirez Pleads Guilty to Bank Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\tJose G. Ramirez-Arone Jr. (also known as Jose G. Ramirez, Jr.), a former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/investor-claims\/broker-misconduct\/ubs-painewebber\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">UBS Financial Services of Puerto Rico (UBS-PR) <\/a>broker, has pleaded guilty to criminal charges accusing him of defrauding investors while making over $1 million in improper commissions through the sale of Puerto Rico closed-end funds. Ramirez-Arone is scheduled to be sentenced next year.<\/p>\n<p>The former UBS broker, known to many on the island as \u201cWhopper,\u201d and UBS Puerto Rico have together been the subject of dozens of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) arbitration complaints brought by customers claiming they sustained massive investment losses because not only did UBS and Ramirez-Arone sell the customers Puerto Rico bonds while misrepresenting the risks, but also, the finer broker recommended that they borrow money to purchase even more of these securities when they could not afford them.<\/p>\n<p>Ramirez-Arone was one of the top-selling brokers at UBS Puerto Rico. In his guilty plea, Ramirez-Arone admitted that he was involved in a scam to help his UBS customers fraudulently obtain non-purpose credit lines, which was a violation of the firm\u2019s policy. The credit lines came from UBS Bank USA, which is a UBS Financial Services subsidiary based in Utah. According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/former-registered-financial-advisor-pleads-guilty-bank-fraud-role-scheme-fraudulently-obtain\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">U.S. Department of Justice<\/a>, Ramirez-Arone took advantage of the low interest rates at UBS bank to convince his customers to buy additional shares of UBS\u2019s Puerto Rico closed-end funds (CEFs). The former UBS broker acknowledged being a part of a scheme that involved recommending to different clients that they take money from the UBS Bank credit lines to invest to in the UBS Puerto Rico closed-end bond funds. Since using a \u201cnon-purpose\u201d loan to buy additional securities is not allowed, Ramirez-Arone admitted advising customers to misrepresent on their credit line application what they intended to use the credit line and having the clients take the borrowed money to their retail bank and then bring the money back to UBS to buy more securities.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/ex-ubs-puerto-rico-broker-jose-whopper-ramirez-pleads-guilty-to-bank-fraud\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Ex-UBS Puerto Rico Broker Jose \u201cWhopper\u201d Ramirez Pleads Guilty to Bank Fraud\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jose G. Ramirez-Arone Jr. (also known as Jose G. Ramirez, Jr.), a former UBS Financial Services of Puerto Rico (UBS-PR) broker, has pleaded guilty to criminal charges accusing him of defrauding investors while making over $1 million in improper commissions through the sale of Puerto Rico closed-end funds. Ramirez-Arone is scheduled to be sentenced next [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6663,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3762,4039],"tags":[3198,3199,3200,3176,3070,3201],"class_list":["post-6679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-investigations","category-puerto-rico-bond-funds","tag-jose-g-ramirez","tag-jose-g-ramirez-arone-jr","tag-ubs-bank-usa","tag-ubs-financial-services","tag-ubs-puerto-rico","tag-whopper"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Puerto Rico Broker Pleads Guilty to Bank Fraud &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jose G. Ramirez-Arone Jr, a former UBS Financial Services of Puerto Rico broker, has pleaded guilty to criminal charges accusing him of defrauding investors\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/ex-ubs-puerto-rico-broker-jose-whopper-ramirez-pleads-guilty-to-bank-fraud\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Puerto Rico Broker Pleads Guilty to Bank Fraud &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Jose G. 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Ramirez-Arone Jr, a former UBS Financial Services of Puerto Rico broker, has pleaded guilty to criminal charges accusing him of defrauding investors","twitter_image":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/dreamstime_xxl_96933145.jpg","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/ex-ubs-puerto-rico-broker-jose-whopper-ramirez-pleads-guilty-to-bank-fraud\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/ex-ubs-puerto-rico-broker-jose-whopper-ramirez-pleads-guilty-to-bank-fraud\/"},"author":{"name":"Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP","@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e0240e0754684b69f7d6a7de1b9f1431"},"headline":"Ex-UBS Puerto Rico Broker Jose \u201cWhopper\u201d Ramirez Pleads Guilty to Bank Fraud","datePublished":"2018-11-21T18:57:12+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/ex-ubs-puerto-rico-broker-jose-whopper-ramirez-pleads-guilty-to-bank-fraud\/"},"wordCount":612,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/ex-ubs-puerto-rico-broker-jose-whopper-ramirez-pleads-guilty-to-bank-fraud\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/dreamstime_xxl_96933145.jpg","keywords":["Jose G. 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