SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Juan Carlos Montalbo, 59, of San Antonio, Texas, was sentenced today to two years in prison for a conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with a timeshare fraud in Mexico, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.
According to court documents, Montalbo, while working in the timeshare industry in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, would tell timeshare owners that he could guarantee the sale of their existing timeshare vacation rentals, often to pay for other timeshare products Montalbo was attempting to sell them. He and his coconspirators would guarantee the sales and would represent that buyers were already arranged who were ready to pay for the timeshares. In truth, no buyers had actually been arranged. Instead, other coconspirators would convince the victims of the fraud to wire additional money from bank accounts in the United States and Canada to bank accounts in Mexico for alleged up-front payments including taxes, fees, and commissions to make the sale of the timeshare occur. The conspirators would assure victims that the non-existent buyers had already deposited money into trust accounts and that the sellers’ up-front fees would be fully reimbursed from those funds after the sale was complete.
In November 2020, Judge Mendez sentenced co-defendant Wayne Arthur York II to five months’ time served, two years of supervised release, and to pay $449,980 in restitution to the victims of the scheme.
In March 2020, Judge Mendez sentenced co-defendant Marco Antonio Ramirez Zuno to two years’ time served and to pay $1,108,375 in restitution to the victims of the scheme.
This case was the product of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew G. Morris prosecuted the case.