A man who spent years on the run from the FBI amid an international manhunt on charges he embezzled $10 million from a New Hampshire investment firm has pleaded guilty, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Roberto Montano had admitted to the victim he "cooked the books" during a Skype call from Miami in 2014, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for New Hampshire, but he didn't return to New England like he'd promised, saying, "If I have to go to prison, I'll go to prison."
Instead, Montano flew to his native Guatemala, and despite again admitting to the scheme on a call with the victim, saying he'd taken about $10 million, the man fled Guatemala, too, avoiding a warrant from local authorities by going to Nicaragua, according to prosecutors.
There, he'd been living as a life coach and yoga instructor under the alias of Alberto Yardi, prosecutors said.
The FBI's nearly decade-long manhunt for Montano ended Nov. 1 at Miami International Airport, prosecutors said. After he was taken into custody, he allegedly wrote a five-page document admitting he was guilty.
"I am guilty. I abused the trust [the victim] placed in me," the document read, according to prosecutors.
Montano pleaded guilty to wire fraud at a hearing in federal court in Concord, New Hampshire, on Monday, according to the U.S. attorney's office. He's due to be sentenced May 30; the charge carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of roughly $20 million — twice the amount Montano stole.
Local
The embezzlement involved two Guatemalan forestry projects that Montano managed for a New Hampshire investment advisor for seven years, starting in 2007, prosecutors said. Within two years, he started diverting cash, using unauthorized mortgages on the properties to fund failed investments and stealing Guatemalan forestry subsidies. To get away with it, Montano changed financial statements, at one point giving the victim a bank statement that said it had $1.1 million on hand when it really had a balance of zero.
Montano was arrested with the help of Interpol, the Italian embassy in Nicaragua and more, according to prosecutors.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
