Kapoor case: the historic scandal that touches 2 mayors in Miami-Dade

Kapoor case: the historic scandal that touches 2 mayors in Miami-Dade. Real estate developer held without bail and 37 charges.

A real estate developer held without bail, 37 criminal charges and documented payments to a former mayor and an active Miami-Dade mayor connected to a scheme that allegedly duped more than 50 investors. The Rishi Kapoor case shakes up the county’s political class.

Detained since his birthday

On March 6, 2026, his 42nd birthday, Rishi Kapoor was arrested in Fort Lauderdale by FBI agents. Three days earlier, a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida had formally indicted him by indictment on 37 counts: conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the federal government, employee payroll tax fraud, tax evasion, failure to file tax returns and bank fraud.

The case is docket number 1:26-cr-20073-KMM and was assigned to federal Judge K. Michael Moore, with Magistrate Judge D’Angelo participating in the initial hearings.

Federal Magistrate Marty Elfenbein denied bail that same day. And since then, despite two additional requests, Kapoor has remained in federal custody in Miami. On April 30, 2026, The Real Deal reported, Judge Moore last denied bail, backing the government’s argument: Kapoor is a flight risk.

The indictment describes a scheme the federal government calls an $85 million fraud. According to the indictment, Kapoor allegedly raised that money from more than 50 investors between 2018 and 2023 through false representations about the use of the funds, his own capital contributions and the destination of preconstruction deposits. The prosecution, led by U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones, is supported by the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which in parallel is pursuing its own civil case against Kapoor.

The scheme: projects that were never built

Kapoor was the CEO of Location Ventures, a real estate development firm that operated in Miami-Dade since 2016 under the promise of building co-living and luxury condo projects. Its main brand, Urbin, promised units in Coconut Grove and Miami Beach. According to federal documents, none of those projects were ever built.

The Urbin Coconut Grove, valued at $70 million, never made it past the promise phase. The Urbin Miami Beach, with 69 units sold in preconstruction, did not either. Investors who purchased units or injected capital allegedly did not receive what was promised. Instead, prosecutors allege, funds earmarked for specific projects were commingled among entities, used in other projects or diverted for Kapoor’s personal benefit.

The indictment includes condominium deposit charges: it is alleged that Kapoor allegedly deceived escrow agents to release preconstruction funds and use them without authorization. He is also accused of withholding $2 million in payroll taxes that employees paid out of their salaries but were never remitted to the IRS. The IRS criminal investigations agency estimates that between 2019 and 2023, Kapoor would have evaded paying $2.8 million in taxes of his own.

The largest investors in the case are Miami Beach couple Alex Kleyner and Diane Ulis, who allegedly put $45 million into Kapoor’s projects. In sworn testimony before the SEC, Kleyner described Kapoor as the “ultimate decision-maker without question.” When they attempted to exercise oversight over the funds and request a $25 million buyout of their stake, Kapoor allegedly ignored them. They later discovered unauthorized kickbacks, unreported budget changes, and a pattern of misuse of funds.

The evidence facing Kapoor is voluminous: the defense received 3 terabytes of material, equivalent to approximately 20 million pages, in the discovery process. The trial has not yet been scheduled.

The cooperators: who is talking to the prosecution?

Daniel Motha

Both Daniel Motha and anyone else named in this case – including Greg Brooks, investors and officials – are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The following describes procedural actions documented in federal public records, not findings of guilt.

To understand the strength of the criminal case against Kapoor, one must look at those who allegedly accompanied him and today have different agreements with the federal government.

Greg Brooks

Greg Brooks was CFO of Location Ventures between August 2022 and March 2023. He was fired when, according to available reports, he discovered irregularities in the handling of funds. In May 2023 he sued Kapoor for unpaid bonds of $80,000 related to Urbin and a property in Coconut Grove. That case was settled with a $150,000 confidential settlement in June 2023. Brooks cooperated with the FBI, IRS and SEC, and will provide sworn testimony in proceedings related to the case.

Daniel Motha is the other key cooperator, although his role is legally more precise. Motha was CFO, president and board member of Location Ventures; a college friend of Kapoor’s and a partner in the company since 2016. On March 31, 2026, the government filed against him not an indictment voted by a grand jury, but an “Information” – an charging document that is only used when the defendant already has a plea agreement, because he waives his constitutional right to a grand jury by signing a Waiver of Indictment.

Motha signed that waiver and was indicted on a single count: conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government under 18 U.S.C. 371, with a maximum penalty of 5 years. In contrast, Kapoor faces sentencing guidelines ranging from 210 to 262 months in prison if convicted at trial.

The attorney Motha chose to represent him is Eric Rosen, a former federal prosecutor at the Justice Department known for his specialization in plea agreement negotiations. And the Information document cites an internal email from January 2019, where Motha wrote: “At some point we need to start paying these!”-evidence that Motha personally delivered to investigators.

All of these elements – the Information, the signed Waiver of Indictment, the single count under 18 USC 371, the election of Eric Rosen as counsel and the email cited verbatim as an overt act – are publicly recognized indicators of procedural cooperation with the federal government. The SEC also filed a parallel civil lawsuit against Motha in April 2025. If there is a formal plea agreement between Motha and the prosecution, it could be under seal.

In addition to Brooks and Motha, there is a third internal witness identified only as “Controller 1” in the federal Information. According to the document, this individual worked at Location Ventures between February 2021 and January 2024. Those dates do not match Brooks’ employment (August 2022 – March 2023) or his title – Brooks was CFO, not Controller. They are two different people, which means that at least three insiders could testify for the government in the case against Kapoor.

Before there was a criminal indictment, Rishi Kapoor’s story had already touched local politics. The public trigger for the documentary was a civil lawsuit.

On May 10, 2023, Greg Brooks – former chief financial officer (CFO) of Location Ventures during the period August 2022 to March 2023 – filed a lawsuit against the company under Filing #172892087 in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Miami-Dade County.

The lawsuit sought $80,000 in unpaid bonuses tied to financing obtained for Urbin projects, including the Commodore Plaza project in Coconut Grove, but its newsworthiness was greater: it was one of the first documentary windows to publicly expose the $10,000 monthly payments that Location Ventures’ Urbin subsidiary made to Francis Suarez, then mayor of Miami, for services that Brooks described in the lawsuit as “unknown services” with no written contract or invoices to support them.

Location Ventures denied any wrongdoing. Eight days after that filing, on May 18, 2023, journalists Joey Flechas, Tess Riski and Jay Weaver kicked off the Miami Herald’s “Mayor for Hire” editorial series with a piece that revealed the mayor’s undisclosed outside work linked to the developer, citing precisely the allegations in the Brooks lawsuit.

Five days later, on May 23, the Herald published the strongest piece in the series – “Exclusive: Developer paid Miami’s mayor $170K to push his project, company records state” – where it reported, according to corporate records reviewed by the newspaper, that Location Ventures’ Urbin subsidiary paid Suarez $10,000 a month since August 2022 and that the payments totaled at least $170,000.

The series continued on June 5 with a piece on a call from the mayor’s team to Miami zoning director Daniel Goldberg after Goldberg rejected Kapoor’s plans, and on June 10 with a report that the FBI was investigating the payments while the SEC examined Location Ventures’ finances.

On July 18, 2023, the Herald reported that Kapoor had left the management of Location Ventures amid federal investigations.

Miami Mayor: $170,000 and a skyrocketing fortune

Suarez has denied any wrongdoing. At the time he said he was hired as a consultant to recruit investors outside of Miami-Dade and was promised commissions and equity that he never received. Florida state public records, however, show a documented pattern. According to his affidavits of assets to the Florida Commission on Ethics (Form 1), the then-mayor’s net worth went from $245,015 in June 2017 – his last year as Miami commissioner before taking over as mayor – to $5,318,518 at the close of 2024, his last year at the helm of the mayor’s office.

The increase – 21.7 times, equivalent to a growth of 2,070% – is documented in official affidavits accessible at disclosure.floridaethics.gov and was reported by Miami New Times based on a compendium of Forms 1 covering the years 2017 to 2024, which News Miami Dade downloaded, processed with optical character recognition and verified directly.

Growth, however, was not linear.

• In his first full year as Major(2018), Suarez’s net worth even dropped slightly – from $245,015 to $227,841.
• The critical jump came between 2021 and 2022: from $1,338,551 at the close of 2021 to $3,454,820 at the close of 2022, an increase of 158% in a single fiscal year.
• That same year, in August 2022, the $10,000 monthly payments that Location Ventures’ Urbin subsidiary made to Suarez as a “consultant” began, according to the Miami Herald investigation.

Another relationship documented in the same Forms 1 – and the PDF of the 2017-2024 statements – involves City National Bank of Florida.

The downtown Miami-based bank is listed simultaneously as a mortgage creditor of Suarez, with balances consistently above $1.1 million between 2020 and 2024 (last reported year: $1,170,641), and as one of the employers that paid him as a “consultant” during the last year of his tenure, according to Form 1 of 2023.

City National Bank finances construction projects in Miami whose permits require the approval of the city’s Mayor. Suarez himself signed the declarations under legal affirmation.

Francis Suarez’s financial disclosures open another line of scrutiny

The compendium of financial declarations of Francis X. Suarez between 2017 and 2024 adds a key piece to the political context of the Rishi Kapoor case: it does not by itself prove criminal conduct, but it does allow us to observe how his sources of income, properties, liabilities and declared wealth evolved while he served as mayor of the City of Miami.

On Form 1 for 2023, filed with the Ethics Commission on June 29, 2024, Suarez reported multiple primary sources of income in excess of $2,500. These include Quinn Emanuel LLP, DaGrossa Capital Partners, Legacy Wealth Advisors, Redivider Edge LLC, Dreamer Capital, Two Bridge, City National Bank of Florida, Emerge Americas, Bilt Technologies, ONEOF, INC, Redivider Blockchain Oz Fund and, particularly relevant to this case, Urbin/Location Ventures, identified on the form as a source of income from “consultant” services.

This is important because Location Ventures and its business environment are linked to the corporate universe investigated around Rishi Kapoor.

The total estimated payments that Kapoor or his entities made to Suarez exceed $170,000. Suarez is not named in Kapoor’s criminal indictment, PDF of the federal document. Nor has he been formally charged with any crime. According to reports in the Miami Herald and other local media, the FBI has reportedly opened an investigation into alleged bribery related to permits for the Coconut Grove project. News Miami Dade was unable to independently verify the current status of that investigation through public federal documents. The Miami-Dade Ethics Commission also opened an investigation into the Suarez-Kapoor relationship in 2023, as did the State Attorney’s Office.

Suarez completed his term in December 2025. In 2024, he testified under oath before the SEC as part of the agency’s parallel civil case against Kapoor.

Coral Gables mayor: commissions, rents and recusals

The other political figure at the center of the case is Vince Lago, the current mayor of Coral Gables. His relationship with Kapoor involves multiple layers documented in public records – and, in 2024, spawned a failed citizen recall attempt against him, which cited precisely Kapoor’s payments as one of the central reasons for the petition. Lago passed that process because the recall campaign failed to meet the signature threshold required by the Coral Gables city charter.

Lago is a 40% co-owner of 1424 Ponce LLC, the legal entity that owns the commercial space at 1424 Ponce de Leon Boulevard – a former judo studio across the street from the land Location Ventures had purchased for its 16-story project. The other 40% is owned, according to Political Cortadito, by Esteban Suarez, cousin of then Miami Mayor Francis Suarez.

According to reports in Political Cortadito (June 2023), Location Ventures leased that space for approximately $12,400 per month, with payments totaling more than $152,000 in all, purportedly for use as a sales office for the project across the street. The space, however, remained vacant for more than a year while Kapoor’s firm continued to pay the monthly rent, the same media outlet documented. Lago formally recused himself from Coral Gables city commission votes related to Kapoor’s projects, citing that business relationship.

In addition, Kapoor’s and Location Ventures’ contributions to Political Committees linked to Lago’s political orbit total $25,000.09 documented with primary source in the Miami-Dade Clerk of Court’s official VoterFocus system, distributed in three transactions: on May 18, 2022, Location Ventures corporation (occupation “Developers” in the registry) donated $10,000 to the “Coral Gables First” PAC; on January 26, 2023, Rishi Kapoor (occupation “CEO-Location Ventures”) donated $10,000 to the “Beautify Grove Miami” PAC; and on March 21, 2023, also from his personal name, Kapoor donated $5,000.09 to the Friends of the Gables PAC.

These figures are higher than the $19,000 initially reported by Calle Ocho News and other secondary media, and raise the figure from Level 2 (media coverage) to Level 1 (official Clerk of Court record).

Another financially documented connection involves Rosa Commercial Real Estate, Inc. (Sunbiz P16000077000, DBA ENDEAVOR), a brokerage in which Lago held an active real estate license at the time of the transaction. That brokerage received $640,000 in commission for the sale of the land at 1505 Ponce de Leon Boulevard, a 16-story, 80-unit project valued at $35.5 million. The Real Deal documented the $640,000 figure in its May 5, 2026 coverage, consistent with the Miami Herald report (an early TRD article in August 2023 had cited $690,000, a preliminary figure that TRD itself later updated to $640,000).

According to reports by The Real Deal, Lago formally recused himself from Coral Gables city commission votes related to Kapoor’s projects. However, he also held private meetings with Kapoor and the Coral Gables city manager to advance the co-living project. Lago has not been charged with any crime and faces no criminal charges.

According to public real estate licensing records from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR, corporate license CQ1052829), at the time of the transaction the firm was headed by Oscar A. De La Rosa – former Hialeah City Councilman and owner, principal and qualifying broker of the brokerage.

According to the Miami Herald report, Rosa Commercial Real Estate had five registered agents: Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago; formerHialeah MayorEsteban “Stevie” Bovo; Chelsea Granell – Chief of Staff at Coral Gables City Hall; attorney and lobbyist William Riley Jr. – who was indicted in 2023 for allegedly serving as a “bagman” for former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla in a federal bribery scheme that both were acquitted of when prosecutors dropped the charges in November 2024 citing inconsistent circumstantial evidence; and Anthony Casas.

According to Florida public real estate licensing records, Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago, Hialeah Mayor Esteban “Stevie” Bovo, Oscar De La Rosa – former Hialeah City Councilman, son of Bovo and owner of La Rosa Commercial Real Estate – and Chelsea Granell – Lago’s Chief of Staff at the Coral Gables City Hall – are or were listed as agents or licensees of the same brokerage. No public federal documents to date link these individuals to each other in connection with the Kapoor case, nor are there any formal charges of coordination.

According to reports by The Real Deal, Lago formally recused himself from Coral Gables city commission votes related to Kapoor’s projects. However, he also held private meetings with Kapoor and the Coral Gables city manager to advance the co-living project. Lago has not been charged with any crime and faces no criminal charges.

No public federal documents to date link these individuals to each other in connection with the Kapoor case, nor is there any formal charge of coordination. The Miami Herald reported that four of the five agents denied direct involvement in the transaction and said they did not know who received the commission or whether it was distributed.

The Bahamas and the yacht: why the judge denies bail

Kapoor’s defense tried on two separate occasions to obtain his release on bail. The family offered $2.7 million in Atlanta property as collateral. Judge K. Michael Moore did not consider it sufficient.

The federal government detailed its arguments in an April 23, 2026 court document (Government’s Response to Defense Appeal of Detention Order, DE39 in Case 1:26-cr-20073). The arguments are concrete: between May and August 2023, while the SEC investigation was already underway, Kapoor and his wife Jennie Frank Kapoor spent four months in the Bahamas. The captain who operated the 68-foot yacht seized by the US Marshals – the same yacht Kapoor financed with a $4.2 million loan related to Location Ventures – is known as “Captain Nick” and has operational connections to the Bahamas.

Kapoor’s father, who resides in Atlanta, testified under oath to the SEC in March 2024 that he had given his son $8 million and had commercial property valued at $30 million in his name. The government argues that those assets, combined with connections in the Bahamas and the ability to travel internationally, make Kapoor a real flight risk.

Kapoor remains in federal custody since the day of his arrest.

SEC collapse and settlement without admission of guilt

Prior to the criminal indictment, the SEC had opened its own front. On Dec. 27, 2023, the agency filed civil complaint Case 1:23-cv-24903 alleging that Kapoor and his entities raised $93 million from more than 50 investors through allegedly false representations. The lawsuit includes Location Ventures, Urbin LLC and more than 20 related entities.

In January 2024, the court appointed Bernice C. Lee, of the law firm Kozyak Tropin Throckmorton, as receiver for the Kapoor entities. Since then, Lee has been working to liquidate assets and recover what is possible for investors. One of the few projects completed was Villa Valencia in Coral Gables, completed in July 2022. The 1505 Ponce de Leon site in Coral Gables, approved for 16 stories and 80 units, was sold for $35.5 million, but the project remains stalled.

In November 2024, Kapoor settled the civil case with the SEC without admitting or denying liability, according to the federal government’s DE39. Financial penalties from that settlement are pending. The criminal indictment came 16 months after the SEC’s civil suit.

What we know and what we don’t

As of the date of this publication, the criminal trial against Kapoor has no date. The evidence is voluminous – 3 terabytes of material – and the discovery process is still ongoing. Motha’s case had a trial date scheduled for April 15, 2026.

What is not publicly resolved: whether there are additional defendants. The Real Deal, in its May 5, 2026 analysis, noted that several players – officials, lenders, intermediaries – could be part of future developments in the case. The prosecution has not publicly indicated whether there are additional indictments in the pipeline.

It is also unclear exactly how much will be recovered for investors. The receiver is working with properties that are mostly half-built or never built. And the $2.8 million in evaded property taxes, according to the IRS, remain unpaid.

The mayors of Miami – Suarez, who is out of office – and Coral Gables – Lago, who is still in office – are not facing criminal charges. However, their financial connections to Kapoor are documented in public records, sworn statements and media reports.

In Miami-Dade, where decisions on permits, rezonings and development projects are made in city offices, what – if anything – those officials received in return is precisely one of the questions the FBI is investigating, according to available reports.

Sources consulted

Federal primary documents (Level 1 – official)

1. Department of Justice. “Miami Developer Charged With $85 Million Fraud Scheme Used To Fund Luxury Yacht And Lifestyle.” Justice.gov, USAO Southern District of Florida. View press release
2. USDC Southern District of Florida. United States v. Rishi Kapoor, Indictment Case 1:26-cr-20073-KMM. March 3, 2026, 38 pages. Download PDF
3. USDC Southern District of Florida. Government’s Response to Defense Appeal of Detention Order, DE39 at Case 1:26-cr-20073. April 23, 2026, 17 pages. Download PDF
4. USDC Southern District of Florida. United States v. Daniel J. Motha, Federal Information Case 1:26-cr-20120. March 31, 2026, 9 pages. Download PDF
5. Securities and Exchange Commission. Press Release 2024-2: “SEC Charges Rishi Kapoor and Affiliated Companies With Fraud.” See press release
6. Securities and Exchange Commission. Litigation Release LR-25921: SEC v. Kapoor. See litigation release
7. Securities and Exchange Commission. Litigation Release LR-26293: SEC v. Daniel Motha. See litigation release
8. Internal Revenue Service. “Miami developer charged with $85 million fraud scheme used to fund luxury yacht and lifestyle.” IRS Criminal Investigation Press Release. View press release
9. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Rishi Kapoor et al., Case 1:23-cv-24903. Southern District of Florida, filed December 27, 2023. See docket at Justia
10. Kozyak Tropin Throckmorton. Location Ventures Receivership Court Documents Archive. Law Offices of Receivership Court Bernice C. Lee. Access the archive
11. Florida Commission on Ethics. Form 1 Statement of Financial Interests – public statements of assets (search Francis Suarez). Search disclosure.floridaethics.gov. 2017-2024 compendium (176 pages, scanned) compiled by Miami New Times in December 2025 available in the media outlet’s public PDF; News Miami Dade downloaded the document, applied optical character recognition with Tesseract and directly verified the year-by-year net worth figures cited in the body of the article.
12. City of Coral Gables. Campaign Finance disclosures – Vince Lago, Mayor. Municipal VoterFocus system. See disclosures+-+MAYOR)

Media reports (Level 2 – cited with attribution)

13. Arrows, Joey; Riski, Tess; Weaver, Jay. “Shakedown City” (editorial series). Miami Herald, July 18, 2023. (Paywall – verification conducted via multiple references Level 2.)
14. Alvarado, Francisco. “Inside Rishi Kapoor’s collapse: The investors, officials and insiders who could be part of his federal case.” The Real Deal, May 5, 2026. Read article
15. The Real Deal. “Judge denies Miami developer Rishi Kapoor bond release.” April 30, 2026. Read article
16. The Real Deal. “Spilling the tea: Rishi Kapoor’s ex-CFO drops bombshells in deposition”. August 3, 2023. Read article
17. The Real Deal. “Rishi Kapoor deal netted $690K for mayor’s brokerage.” August 7, 2023. Read article
18. Political Cortadito. “Developer Rishi Kapoor / Gables major Vince Lago.” June 2, 2023. Read article
19. Calle Ocho News. “The developer who paid Francis Suarez.” Read article
20. Miami New Times. “Miami Mayor Francis Suarez Made Nearly $5 Million While in Office.” Read article
21. Local 10. “Prominent Miami developer indicted for $85 million fraud scheme, feds say.” March 6, 2026. Read article
22. WLRN. “Rishi Kapoor developer indictment Suarez.” March 11, 2026. Read article
23. Commercial Observer. “Rishi Kapoor / Justice Department / Location Ventures / Urbin.” March 9, 2026. Read article
24. Bisnow. “Miami Mayor Francis Suarez / Location Ventures.” Read article

Disclaimer: This article is investigative journalism based on public federal documents, official Florida state records and verified media reports. Rishi Kapoor is presumed innocent of all charges until proven guilty in a court of law. Daniel Motha likewise.

None of the public authorities mentioned – Francis Suarez, Vince Lago, Esteban Bovo, Oscar De La Rosa or Chelsea Granell – have been charged with any criminal offense in connection with this case. Their connections to Kapoor, described in this article, come from public records and specialized media reports.

Corrections or comments: newsmiamidade305@gmail.com.

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