Before committing suicide on Tuesday, Sergio Pino allegedly hired a second team of hitmen to murder his estranged wife after the first crew failed to do the job, according to South Florida’s top federal law enforcement officials.
The second group was also unsuccessful in killing Tatiana Pino, whose messy divorce from the deceased homebuilder was at the crux of Pino’s alleged “murder-for-hire” scheme, the officials said.
During a Wednesday press conference at the FBI’s Miramar headquarters, South Florida U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe and Jeffrey Veltri, special-agent-in-charge of the FBI’s Miami office, provided the first detailed account of Pino’s efforts to snuff out Tatiana Pino.
“These efforts were thwarted,” Lapointe said. “She no longer has to fear for her life.”
Pino, founder of Coral Gables-based Century Homebuilders Group, was found dead at his waterfront Cocoplum estate on Tuesday morning after FBI agents arrived at his Coral Gables home to execute a search warrant and arrest him, Veltri said.
Shortly after 6 a.m. on Tuesday, an FBI SWAT team surrounded Pino’s waterfront estate at 142 Isla Dorada Boulevard in the posh Coral Gables enclave of Cocoplum, Veltri said.
“They ordered Mr. Pino to exit the home and surrender,” Veltri said. “A crisis negotiating team attempted to call Mr. Pino. Also family and friends, including his attorney. All of them were unable to reach Mr. Pino.”
Ultimately, after the SWAT team entered the house, they found him in his bedroom, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Veltri said.
Veltri and Lapointe disputed statements by Pino’s lawyer, Sam Rabin, that the show of force was unnecessary and that his client would have turned himself in.
“This was a man who had been engaged in an active and aggressive planning to murder his wife,” Lapointe said. “In this particular case, there is no question in our minds as to what his intent was.”
Pino was aware that the FBI was closing in on him and continued with the plot, Lapointe said. “That didn’t stop him,” Lapointe said. “That didn’t bother him at all.”
After the four members of the first crew were arrested and charged with conspiracy to stalk Tatiana Pino and other crimes in March, Pino enlisted a Cutler Bay man named Fausto Rafael Villar to form another hit team in late June, Lapointe said.
The first team of four hitmen are accused of orchestrating a hit-and-run accident involving Tatiana Pino by ramming a Home Depot flatbed truck into her BMW, arrest warrants state. They also allegedly set fire to her sister’s cars and supplied Pino with fentanyl that he dosed his wife with, Lapointe and Veltri said.
A separate FBI squad raided Villar’s home and arrested him at about the same time as the operation at Pino’s house, Lapointe said. Villar allegedly did roofing work on Pino’s home.
Villar has been charged with four counts of murder for hire, stalking, obstruction of justice, aiding and abetting and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime. Villar is a convicted felon who was involved in an armed robbery in 2010 of a man who won $131,000 from placing online bets, court records show.
Villar enlisted four other men in the hit against Tatiana Pino: Avery Bivins, Diori Barnard, Clementa Johnson and Vernon Green, to take over the hit job, Lapointe and Veltri said.
While all five suspects are in custody, the criminal complaints and indictments against them previously had not yet been filed.
“It was a contract killing,” Lapointe said. “Pino would pay $150,000 in the first disbursement. And he would pay another $150,000 if it did not connect to Mr. Pino. And Mrs. Pino would have to die before the next payment.”
On June 22, Barnard, Johnson and Green stalked Tatiana Pino at different spots in South Florida, Lapointe said. The next day, the trio showed up at her house and one of them exited their car “with a gun and chased Mrs. Pino,” Lapointe said.
“She managed to get in her house,” Lapointe said. “Her daughter came out and the perpetrator pointed the gun at the daughter. She was literally looking at the barrel.”
However, the gunman fled since the daughter wasn’t the target, Lapointe said. Tatiana Pino immediately reported the attempted murder to the FBI, Veltri said.
On Monday, June 24, the FBI raided Pino’s house and Century Homebuilders Group’s headquarters. Veltri declined to comment on evidence that was gathered during those operations.
Pino’s firm, Century Homebuilders Group, was considered the biggest homebuilder in the country, having completed more than 16,000 homes since it was founded. A major Republican donor, Pino was an influential figure in South Florida — he was a former president of the Latin Builders Association and ex-chairman of U.S. Century Bank’s board of directors.
He and his now-widow, Tatiana Pino, were in the middle of a contentious divorce that began in 2022. The FBI had been investigating whether Pino hired one of his part-time employees to target Tatiana.
Tatiana had accused her estranged husband of poisoning her with fentanyl and bath salts, according to her deposition, included in the divorce filings. Pino and his attorneys denied the allegations.
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