(Photo-illustration by The Real Deal)
Like most alleged Ponzi schemes, a Miami-based troika’s plan to tap South American investors to fund their real estate projects started off with non-criminal, ambitious intentions.
Ernesto Weisson, a Coconut Grove businessman and architect who spent time as a developer in his native Ecuador, teamed up with fellow Ecuadorian and financial manager Roberto Cortes to build a few luxury homes on Key Biscayne through traditional funding sources and construction loans in the early 2000s, according to legal filings in Miami-Dade Circuit Court.
By 2005, Weisson and Cortes brought in a third partner, an Argentine financier named Fernando Haberer, and expanded their horizons by purchasing 30 vacant lots at the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo for potential development. They also had a deal to develop a prime piece of waterfront land in North Bay Village. The trio launched two companies, South Bay Holdings, the development arm of their nascent enterprise, and Biscayne Capital International, an entity that collected tens of millions of dollars from South American investors.
But it was more than the three partners could handle. According to a Sept. 1 U.S. Department of Justice criminal complaint, South Bay’s projects began suffering financial difficulties in 2007, which worsened over the next decade. Between 2007 and 2012, the company’s liabilities mushroomed from about $22.5 million to $130 million.
In the past three years, six…
