FBI investigating developer Sergio Pino’s possible link to threats against wife’s life

FBI agents raided the waterfront home of major Miami-Dade builder Sergio Pino and his company’s office in Coral Gables this week, according to the bureau’s field office in South Florida.

“I can confirm that the FBI conducted court ordered law enforcement activity at both of those locations,” FBI spokesman James Marshall said Friday, declining further comment.

The search of Pino’s Cocoplum home, which he bought for $4.2 million a decade ago, was carried out by an FBI squad on Monday night. The FBI conducted its search of the home builder’s business at the same time.

The Miami Herald has learned that both searches are linked to an FBI investigation into Pino’s possible link to threats made against his wife Tatiana’s life. Over the past two years, Pino and his wife have been battling each other in a divorce case that is headed for trial in July, according to Miami-Dade Circuit Court records.

FBI agents are investigating whether Sergio Pino recruited a part-time worker at his home to hire three men to threaten his wife’s life in the wake of her filing for divorce from him in April 2022, people familiar with the FBI probe told the Miami Herald. The part-time employee and the three men have been charged in Miami federal court with targeting Tatiana Pino in a hit-and-run at her Pinecrest home and her sister in arson attacks on three of her vehicles.

Read more: Arson, hit-and-run at center of probe into Sergio Pino’s alleged threats against wife

In the divorce case, Tatiana Pino has also accused her estranged husband of poisoning her, according to the wife’s deposition.

Sergio Pino has not been charged. His defense attorney, Sam Rabin, said Friday they’re “aware of the investigation, have been cooperating and will continue to do so,” declining further comment.

The wife’s attorney, Raymond Rafool, said they “fully support what the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office is doing.”

A person in the neighborhood who witnessed the raid at Pino’s home told the Herald they first heard a loud noise similar to a flash bang, followed by the same noise about 10 to 15 seconds later. After that, an agent announced through a megaphone that the FBI was carrying out a search and had a warrant.

The person, who did not want to be identified, said the agents were wearing tactical gear and carrying rifles and that the street was lined with law enforcement vehicles. The person also said there was a drone hovering over the back side of Pino’s home, which faces a canal. The FBI was at the home for at least three hours, the person said.

“It was very well-coordinated,” the person told the Herald. “It was a big raid.”

While the FBI confirmed the searches of Pino’s home at 142 Isla Dorada Blvd. and his business at 1805 Ponce de Leon Blvd., both in Coral Gables, the agency spokesman said he could not provide further information. It is unclear what specifically the FBI was searching for at Pino’s properties — search warrants are not public records.

FBI agents also arrived at Tatiana Pino’s residence in Pinecrest on Sunday, closing off a part of Southwest 96th Street to set up what looked like a crime lab outside her home, according to neighbors’ accounts. Police also asked neighbors for access to home surveillance footage, such as video from Ring doorbell devices and exterior cameras, neighbors said.

A neighborhood Facebook account described FBI agents at a home that another neighbor, who did not want to be identified, said was Tatiano Pino’s residence. Jason Cohen, chief of the Pinecrest Police Department, said he could not comment given there was an active investigation underway and referred inquiries to the FBI.

“I can confirm we were there assisting,” he said.

There was a Pinecrest police car parked in Tatiana Pino’s home on Friday afternoon. A man who appeared to be in security gear answered the door but declined to speak to a reporter.

Read more: Developer Sergio Pino’s wife accused him of poisoning her, divorce records show

Sergio Pino, the son of Cuban immigrants who started his home-building empire after he and his father bought a plumbing supply business in the 1970s, did not immediately respond to email and phone messages seeking comment.

Pino, 67, president of Century Homebuilders Group, has for decades been known as a high-profile businessman with influential connections who has made large campaign donations to an array of local, state and federal politicians, dating back to the sprawling suburban explosion of Miami-Dade, the era of former County Mayor Alex Penelas, and the heyday of the powerful construction group, the Latin Builders Association. Century’s website boasts that it has built more than 16,000 single-family homes from Tamiami to Florida City, making it the largest Hispanic-owned home builder in the nation.

The developer has been a force in Republican politics as a fundraiser, particularly in support of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Pino has come under the scrutiny of local, state and federal law enforcement in the past, but he’s never been charged with a crime in connection with his home-building business and other investments or his prodigious political fund-raising activities.

In 2006, the Herald reported that a federal grand jury was investigating allegations that Pino played host to then-Miami-Dade Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz on a weekend jaunt to Cancún in exchange for his support of a large-scale project in Doral. Part of the investigation focused on a May 2004 fishing trip to Cancún aboard Pino’s private jet. On the trip were Pino, Diaz and Carlos de Cespedes, co-founder of the Doral-based Pharmed, a medical supply giant.

Charges were never brought against anyone in the probe.

In 2005, the Herald reported on Pino’s decision to pull out of the duty-free concessions business at Miami International Airport, which had operated for a decade and drawn the attention of investigators and prosecutors. Three years earlier, he and his minority partners in the duty-free joint venture at the airport came under fire in a report by the Miami-Dade County inspector general for earning more than $14.6 million for their cut of a hefty airport contract despite having performed no actual work.

“The airport was guilt by association,” Pino told the Herald before his Century Duty Free’s contract expired at the county-owned MIA. “I never did anything wrong.”

Pino’s profits at the airport — on sales of about half a billion dollars over a decade — were small compared to his home building business, he said.

“There’s nothing wrong with making money,” Pino said. “If I had made $40 million [at MIA], I’d be very proud of it . . . but [the airport] is too bureaucratic. Every time you want to do something, you have to hire lobbyists. It’s a complicated business. It’s not what I do best.”

Nevertheless, the specter of controversy has hovered over Pino for years as he accrued clout by becoming one of South Florida’s most influential political fundraisers. He has spent tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions for local, state and federal candidates.

Pino deftly mixes money, politics and philanthropy.

Pino was asked to join FIU’s board of directors in 2003, and later announced a $2 million endowment for the “Eugenio Pino and Family Global Entrepreneurship Center” in honor of his father, a bodega owner in Cuba who turned to odd jobs when he first arrived in Miami to support his family.

He also spearheaded the political campaign to torpedo slot machines in Miami-Dade County, and he donated his Le Jeune building in 2004 to headquarter President George W. Bush’s re-election campaign in Miami.

Pino has also been a player in Coral Gables City Hall politics as a donor to Mayor Vince Lago. In 2019, businesses tied to Pino gave $2,500 to Lago’s political committee, Coral Gables First. Then in 2023, when Lago was running for reelection, Pino’s Century Asset Management gave him $1,000, according to campaign finance records. The developer has also supported Lago-backed commission candidates.

In March, two businesses tied to Pino gave a combined $10,000 to a political committee seeking to get three referendums on the ballot this year, including a charter amendment to require voter approval for elected officials to raise their salaries.

Pino, twice married and the father of four, has cultivated his political and business savvy since his days as president of Latin Builders in 1990. He started in construction after he and his father bought a plumbing supply business in the late 1970s.