Venezuelan TV mogul’s Rolls-Royce is at center of dispute with the feds

Whenever Venezuelan media mogul Raúl Gorrín flew to Miami — before he was accused by the feds of stealing billions from his own government — he would stay at his waterfront estate in Cocoplum and tool around town in his Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe.

Now federal prosecutors want to take both from him — the 6,000-squarefoot home, which had been on the market for $8 million, and the

$200,000 Rolls convertible — along with 20 other real estate properties worth tens of millions of dollars in the Miami area and Manhattan.

While a criminal case seeking to forfeit Gorrín’s vast real estate portfolio is pretty straightforward — after all, houses, condos and apartments can’t go anywhere — a related civil case targeting his RollsRoyce has been full of twists and turns.

Gorrín, who last visited Miami in November 2017, was charged the following year with bribing Venezuela’s national treasurer, Alejandro Andrade, to gain access to the government’s favorable currency-exchange system during the administrations of the late Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, and his successor, Nicolás Maduro, according to a federal indictment. The scheme, fueled by Venezuela’s oil revenue, produced billions of dollars in ill-gotten profits for the TV network magnate, who transferred the tainted money to bank accounts in Switzerland, South Florida and New York for himself and Andrade, the federal indictment says.

Andrade pleaded guilty in the corruption and money-laundering case, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and paid about $300 million in cash and other assets to the U.S. government — but Gorrín has been designated a fugitive.

Then last September, prosecutors sued four luxury vehicles that belonged to Gorrín in a related civil case: the 2012 Rolls-Royce, a 2016 Ferrari FF, a 2017 Porsche 911 Turbo Coupe, and a 2014 Maserati Quattroporte. Gorrín himself was not sued. U.S. District Judge Robert Scola granted an arrest warrant for his high-end cars.

All but the Rolls-Royce proved to be elusive.

Soon after his criminal case became public in late 2018, Gorrín obtained a “false” Florida driver’s license in his name to acquire duplicate certificates of title for the RollsRoyce, Porsche and Maserati, according to a federal civil complaint. His applications indicated that the original titles had been lost.

For the Ferrari, there was no driver’s license on file, but the application for a duplicate certificate of title also said the original was “lost” and was signed “RG,” purportedly by “Raul A. Gorrin,” the complaint says.

But agents with Homeland Security Investigations learned that Gorrín’s Florida’s driver’s license “did not exist,” according to the complaint. Agents checked a state motor vehicle and driver’s license database and found “no Florida driver’s license has ever been issued to Gorrín.” Moreover, the photo on the license did not match Gorrín’s identity.

HSI agents found that Gorrín had initially used a Venezuelan driver’s license to purchase the four vehicles.

Then, the plot thickened.

Agents found that between Nov. 30 and Dec. 3 of 2018, Gorrín’s four vehicles were transferred to Auto Brokers USA

Corp. in Homestead. A person purporting to be Gorrín, using the fake Florida driver’s license, transferred the luxury vehicles with the duplicate certificates of title to Auto Brokers, the complaint says. The signature on the certificates of title also did not match Gorrín’s handwriting.

In early January 2019, a person who said he was the “caretaker” for Gorrín’s

vehicles reported to the Coral Gables Police Department that they

“had been stolen,” the complaint says. The caretaker, identified only by “J.D.” in the complaint, said that “Gorrín had not authorized the sale of these vehicles to Auto Brokers.”

The so-called caretaker said the vehicles had been taken from a residential building parking garage — One Village Place at 4100 Salzedo St. in Coral Gables — where Gorrín owned 11 condos under the names of various shell companies.

Last year, Auto Brokers sold Gorrín’s Ferrari, Porsche and Maserati at auction before the federal prosecutors filed their civil complaint to forfeit them in September 2019. As a result, prosecutors lost the opportunity to seize the vehicles because the buyers could not have known they were subject to forfeiture. The Ferrari sold for $150,000, the Porsche for $145,000 and the Maserati for $34,500.

The Rolls-Royce, however, did not sell, so agents with Homeland Security Investigations seized it.

In January of this year, Gorrín’s defense attorney, Howard Srebnick, filed a claim for the Rolls-Royce, so he will have to face off with prosecutors over its fate before the federal judge, Scola.

Srebnick said that the prosecutors’ civil complaint proves that his client was a “victim,” noting that “a ring of car thieves took advantage of the fact that Raul Gorrín does not reside here.”

“They stole the cars and used falsified documents to sell them,” Srebnick said Tuesday. “The federal government’s forfeiture complaint confirms that Gorrín was the victim, not the perpetrator, of identity and auto theft, which crimes were reported to the police.”

Auto Brokers USA could not be reached for comment.

Homeland Security Investigations and the

U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment about the case.