Music promoter pleads guilty in two pharmaceutical drug cases in Miami

Miami Herald

6 hours ago

A music promoter charged with distributing millions of dollars worth of 'adulterated' psychiatric, cancer and HIV medications and laundering the profits pleaded guilty in two Miami federal cases on Tuesday.
Boris Arencibia, 51, who has been detained as a flight-risk to Cuba since his arrest last year, was convicted in one case of conspiring to traffic in medical products with false documentation between 2022 and 2023. In another case, Arencibia was also convicted of conspiring to commit money laundering stemming from a pharmaceutical drug-diversion scheme dating back a decade.
His partner in the first case, Jose Armando Rivera, 44, who has been free on bond, also pleaded guilty on Tuesday to the same false documentation charge.
Both Miami-Dade men face between three and five years at their sentencing in September before U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles.
Their plea agreements in the first scheme require them to pay $21 million to the federal government for its losses, Gayles said in court. Separately, Arencibia must pay a forfeiture judgment of $7 million in the money laundering case.
According to a charging document, Arencibia and Rivera owned part of a Texas wholesale distributor, Eclipse Meds, LLC. They bought pharmaceutical drugs from people in Puerto Rico and the United States and used Eclipse Meds to distribute them to pharmacies in Miami-Dade and other parts of the country. The pharmacies, in turn, sold them to patients with private or government insurance plans, such as Medicare for senior citizens.
To make the wholesale network look legitimate, they forged documents saying the adulterated pharmaceutical drugs came from licensed suppliers, according to federal prosecutors.
Arencibia and Rivera, represented by defense attorneys Frank Quintero and Michael Band, agreed to the plea agreements with prosecutors Frank Tamen and Jacqueline Zee DerOvanesian, to avoid potentially higher prison sentences.
'Based on the facts that Mr. Arencibia has been held without bond since January 2024 and that he is not cooperating, we felt that it was in his best interest to resolve both cases if we could negotiate favorable agreements in both cases,' Quintero said in a statement. 'We accomplished that. However, the ultimate sentence in both cases will be up to the Judge.'
Of the two defendants, Arencibia stands out for his controversial history as a music promoter.
Until his arrest at his Kendall home in January of last year, Arencibia worked as the owner and president of South Florida-based Caribe Promotions. He represented musicians and boxers, including Cuban professional boxer Guillermo Rigondeaux.
The promoter caught the ire of Miami's Cuban community after acknowledging that he was an organizer of the Santa María Music Fest in August 2023, which was deemed controversial by some due to its financial links to the Cuban military. A social media influencer from Kentucky got into a fight with Arencibia over the concert, but no one was charged..
In February of last year, a magistrate judge rejected Arencibia's bid for a bond and ordered that he be held at a federal lock-after finding he might flee to his native Cuba because of his contacts from the Santa María festival.
The latest criminal case wasn't the first time Arencibia caught the attention of federal prosecutors.
In 2000, Arencibia was accused of possessing equipment that could create fraudulent credit cards, according to Miami federal court records. He took a plea deal and was sentenced to six months in federal prison followed by three years of probation. Arencibia's permanent residency status in the United States was subsequently revoked.