Carlos Gimenez, Rebeca Sosa and David Rivera Shower Favors On Ex-Cocaine Trafficker (Updated)

By Francisco Alvarado Mon., Oct. 15 2012 at 8:30 AM

Banah International Group

The DEA claimed Alexander I. Perez supplied six kilos to a pair of dealers.

THE COCAINE TRAFFICKER

Despite repeated attempts to interview Perez, Banah Marketing Director Miguel Ferro never made him available. When I took a tour of Banah's 300,000 square-foot warehouse on Oct. 10, Ferro claimed Perez had not been in the office for the entire week due to an illness. Perez also did not respond to an email with a list of questions about his criminal record and five lawsuits against Banah that allege Perez stiffed his ex-landlord, his vendors, and his former employees out of more than half-a-million dollars combined.

A native of Camaguey Cuba born on July 31, 1964, Perez caught the attention of the Drug Enforcement Administration on October 12, 1999. At approximately four that afternoon, agents pulled over two men, Ramon Andres Sanchez and Jose Luis Hernandez, in a Toyota Camry at 515 SW 65th Ave. A search of the vehicle turned up six kilos that Sanchez and Hernandez asserted they got from Perez. The pair provided sworn statements against him. Two years later, the feds indicted Perez on two felony counts of cocaine conspiracy and cocaine possession with intent to sell.

In 2003, Perez, a roly-poly man with olive skin and balding gray hair, pled guilty to one of the counts. He spent four years in federal lock-up.

THE RISE OF BANAH

On June 6, 2008, one year after his release from prison, Perez incorporated Banah International Financial Group and opened an office at 2100 Coral Way. A year later, he formed two more corporations, AP Energy Inc. and Banah International Group. In 2011, he incorporated Banah Sugar.

According to Banah's corporate web-site, Perez has spent the last four years building his sugar empire; initially buying and selling wholesale sugar in the commodities market. From there, Perez bought his own sugar mills in Brazil, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Paraguay, says Marketing Director Ferro, exporting 1.2 million metric tons of granular sugar a year and 1.2 million liters of liquid sugar annually.

"Now we are focusing on the domestic retail market, which is why we have this facility in Hialeah," Ferro says. "Banah sugar is on the shelves at several local chains including Sedanos, Navarro, and Presidente."

But court documents show Perez ran into financial trouble two years after starting up his new enterprise. In a lawsuit filed on April 5, a man named Sergio Gonzalez claims that Perez offered him a $200,000 annual salary on Jan. 30, 2010 to run his company from San Jose, Costa Rica. Gonzalez accepted the job, working seven months for Perez. But he never got paid.

Gonzalez alleges Perez gave him only one paycheck for $16,667 that bounced. He quit in September 2010 after Banah's landlord changed the locks to the company's office doors. Gonzalez claims Perez didn't pay the rent either. In his response to the lawsuit, Perez denies his former chief executive's accusations.

The same month Gonzalez quit, Humana sued Banah International Group for failing to pay $5,347 to cover employee healthcare benefits. The Internal Revenue Service also slapped Perez with a lien for $8,851 in unpaid employee taxes from 2009. Perez settled with Humana for $4,000 in 2011, but court records show the IRS lien is still in place.

Tags:

Alexander I. Perez, Banah International Group, Banah Sugar, Carlos Gimenez, David Rivera, Rebeca Sosa

We Recommend

bobjefferson

This proves the fact that the Herald is a rag being used by Democrats! Why doesn't the Herald investigate or report on the fact that Joe Garcia while working for the US Dept. of Energy under the Obama Administration gave $2 billion in taxpayer money to China to build solar pannels? Why doesn't the Herald report on the fact that Joe Garcia was lobbied by energy companies to raise our electric bills whille he was Chairman of the Public Service Commission? He did raise Floridians electric bills and when he left the Public Service Commission he got a cushy job as a political hack! Joe Garcia is the most corrupt politician in Miami-Dade County and has no business being a Representative of District 26! David Rivera was given a 100% voting record in favor of job creation. That's all I need to know, he's got my vote and my support.

JesusLovesMe

Jesus fucking Christ. Beacon council can't run a simple Miami Dade criminal background check? I wonder how much money the folks at The top of the beacon council take from taxpayers.

David

A primary rule of Business ownership: The business is an entity on its own. What does the man behind it have to do with how it will be run? How many lawsuits are pending for small business around the country who are still trying to get their basic structures firmly planted? Banah has promised a lot of things, but not a single one of those promises have been broken. The article is designed to smear the reputation of a man with a questionable past, by means of discriminatory language no less. What REAL wrong has been done here? Your links aren't functional, your language is derogatory, and all your really doing is provoking the easily influenced american public into believing that people cant possibly try to make something of themselves once they've made a mistake . As a well educated hispanic of cuban descent, id like to say that people like you, "tellyounow", are what has ruined this city. Better yet this society. What exactly do you do that contributes so much to the fabric of the culture we live in? Don't sit there and compare cubans to some sort of plague when your running around screaming your dimwitted idealisms out onto the internet with probably no real understanding of what it means to be living here as an immigrant.

There is no cooperative effort among congress and business owners to help each other excell just because of their heritage. Jesus, the man only gave $500 to the re-election campaign. Thats close to nothing. The people in county government don't do as thorough a job as they should have, and thats obvious, but that has nothing to do with where they came from. It also has nothing to do with them being taught to be thieves or hustlers in their home country. It has to do with the idiots that decided to bring them into power. The same idiots that are commenting on this article. Do me a favor, globalize your perspectives before talking. This country was built on people like the ones mentioned in this article. People who are proactively trying to make the most out of the country they live in. Not people like you.

tellyounow

these people are CUBANS not " liberals" cubans here are known to be the best at what they do rob , scam , and fraud they learn it where they were born at CUBA ! ingrates they come to this country as refugees get free medicare , free school money , free food stamps and then they rob peoples taxes this is not about republicans and democrats its about CUBANS being THIEFS get them out of this city ! they have ruined it all !