14ymedio, Havana, May 12, 2025 — Former Cuban sergeant Yovany Ciero could be sentenced to life imprisonment and fined more than $10,000,000 after being convicted by a jury at a trial in Iowa. The state’s Attorney General’s Northern District charged him with almost 30 counts, including electronic fraud and money laundering, which caused the US government losses of $2.4 million, according to a statement issued on Friday.
Ciero is charged, in particular, with “three charges of electronic fraud, 23 charges of money laundering, one more for his participation in a monetary transaction with goods derived from a specific illicit activity and another for conspiracy to launder money.”
The 48-year-old man was working at a meat packing plant in Algona, Kossuth County in 2020, at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. The jury found that Ciero fraudulently received loans granted by the US government through the Payroll Protection Program (PPP), a $2 billion package approved in the US Congress for individuals, health care providers, small businesses and heavily affected sectors of the economy.
For each fund fraudulently obtained by the applicants, usually of $20,000, the Cuban kept $3,000
The former military man submitted an application to the PPP, stating that in 2019 he was part of the group of affected self-employed entrepreneurs and whose gross income was approximately $100,000. “Ciero and more than a hundred Cuban immigrants obtained fraudulent PPP loans, when in fact they worked at the packing plant or elsewhere,” the statement said.
According to court file 24-CR-3013, which was detailed in a federal court in Sioux City, the Cuban was one of six “bundlers” in the fraudulent PPP loan scheme. His role was to recruit people from whom he obtained confidential information to fill in the applications and then shared it with others who submitted the fraudulent forms to PPP lenders.
Deputy federal prosecutors Timothy L. Vavricek and Daniel A. Chatham explained that Yovany Ciero and his wife received two loans from the PPP, which they used to buy a semi-trailer truck. In addition, for each fund fraudulently obtained by the applicants, usually of $20,000, the Cuban was left with $3,000. Investigations confirmed that the former sergeant “channeled the money into a money-laundering conspiracy.”
Ciero is the sixth former worker in an Iowa meat packing plant convicted under the PPP scheme.
The authorities also indicated that the former Cuban sergeant was denied a visa to enter the US legally. “Almost 20 years ago he crossed the border with Mexico” and after several years settled in Mason City, Iowa. Due to his crossing he was established in Colombia and Venezuela.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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