South Florida residents among 7 accused in $100 million workers’ comp scheme

Five residents of Broward and Palm Beach County are among seven people accused in a nearly $100 million scheme that defrauded workers’ compensation insurers through shell companies, state officials announced Wednesday.

The investigation, conducted by the Broward Sheriff’s Office and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, began in December 2024 after a BSO Money Laundering Task Force detective learned that a company called JYK Construction Concrete Inc. with an address in West Palm Beach was a shell company processing payrolls for several general contractors in Broward, Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties, according to probable cause affidavits.

Shortly after the investigation began, detectives identified nine more shell construction companies with the same West Palm Beach address and discovered they were all allegedly part of a “family criminal enterprise,” according to multiple probable cause affidavits in cases filed in Palm Beach County court last month.

Attorney General James Uthmeier announced in a news release Wednesday the seven people facing charges in connection with the scheme are: Marlen Suazo Gutierrez, 56, of West Palm Beach; Gustavo Lara Suazo, 37, of Lake Worth Beach; Eduardo Blandon Martinez, 56, of West Palm Beach; Alejandra Lagos Matute, 33, of Lake Worth Beach; Erick Blandon, 26, of Port St. Lucie; Blanca Ramirez Farina, 30, of Deerfield Beach; and Eduardo Olivera Leal, 56, of Ocala.

In the scheme, the shell companies were used to obtain workers’ compensation insurance policies by “significantly” underreporting their number of employees and their payroll amount, the Attorney General’s Office news release said.

In workers’ compensation fraud schemes, companies are created and obtain minimal workers’ compensation insurance and employers’ liability policies and then offer the company names and certificates of insurance to be “rented” to other uninsured subcontractors to use for a fee, according to the affidavits.

“This allows payroll to pass through the ‘shell companies’ undetected, as it is never reported to any entity for any purpose,” the affidavits said.

The family enterprise in the scheme “rented” their certificates of insurance to uninsured subcontractors for a fee and allegedly processed and cashed the contractors’ payroll checks through an unlicensed money service business, including for workers who were undocumented immigrants and people living in the country illegally, according to the news release.

“Physical surveillance established that the defendants worked and operated from the same location to process payroll checks and distribute cash directly to workers,” the Attorney General’s Office said. “Over the course of the investigation, nearly $100 million was processed through the shell companies and dispersed as payroll.”

Detectives seized more than $2.4 million in connection with the investigation, the AG’s Office said.

Investigators determined the scheme was operated out of the MLS Paralegal Services office located in the 2600 block of South Military Trail in West Palm Beach, which acted as a “front” for a paralegal services company owned by Gutierrez, the affidavit said.

Suazo oversaw all operations of three of the 10 companies investigated, while Gutierrez oversaw four others, according to the affidavit. They allegedly prepared fake invoices and payroll envelops from which they took an agreed percentage of money from, ranging between 6 to 8 percent, and collected payroll checks from work site “team leaders.”

The payroll checks would then be deposited into various business bank accounts, and business checks would then be written to the personal name of the various business owners. Leal would then cash the checks, the affidavit said. The process “was done to circumvent check cashing limits for businesses for workers’ compensation policies.”

Several days during any given work week, Leal would deposit as much as $700,000 in cash into a safe hidden inside a closet floor in the MLS Paralegal Services office, the affidavit said.

After surveilling the office address on multiple dates, investigators wrote in the affidavit: “The heavy and high volume of construction workers dropping off payroll checks (Over 50 daily) and collecting salary is obvious.”

Farina, Matute, Martinez and Blandon were also found to be working and operating out of the address under the direction of Gutierrez and Suazo, the affidavit said.

Gutierrez on Monday in Palm Beach County court pleaded not guilty to charges of operating as an unlicensed money service business, organized scheme to defraud and workman’s compensation fraud, court records show.

Last month, Suazo, Matute, Blandon and Farina pleaded not guilty to charges of organized scheme to defraud, operating as an unlicensed money service business and workmans’ compensation fraud, court records show. Leal has not yet entered a plea to charges of money laundering and operating as an unlicensed money service transmitter.

Court records were not available Wednesday in Martinez’s case.

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