South Florida, USA — A Key Biscayne, Florida, resident and the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chairman of a now-bankrupt multinational pharmaceutical company was sentenced to 30 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release for his role in a $100 million scheme to defraud Westernbank, Puerto Rico.
The losses triggered a series of events leading to Westernbank’s insolvency and ultimate collapse.
Jack Kachkar, 56, was sentenced by US District Judge Donald L. Graham of the Southern District of Florida, who also presided over the trial in this case. Judge Graham also ordered the defendant to pay $103,490,005 in restitution to the FDIC, as receiver for Westernbank. Kachkar was convicted on February 4, 2019, after a three-week trial, of eight counts of wire fraud affecting a financial institution.
According to evidence presented at trial, from 2005 to 2007, Kachkar served as chairman and CEO of Inyx Inc., a publicly traded multinational pharmaceutical manufacturing company. Beginning in early 2005, Kachkar caused Westernbank to enter into a series of loan agreements in exchange for a security interest in the assets of Inyx and its subsidiaries. Under the loan agreements, Westernbank agreed to advance money based on Inyx’s customer invoices from “actual and bona fide” sales to Inyx customers, the evidence showed.
The trial evidence showed that Kachkar orchestrated a scheme to defraud Westernbank by causing numerous Inyx employees to make tens of millions of dollars worth of fake customer invoices purportedly payable by customers in the United Kingdom, Sweden and elsewhere.
Kachkar caused these invoices to be presented to Westernbank as valid invoices. Kachkar made false and fraudulent representations to Westernbank executives about purported and imminent repayments from lenders in the United Kingdom, Norway, Libya and elsewhere in order to lull Westernbank into continuing to lend money to Inyx, the evidence showed.
In fact, these lenders had not agreed to repay Westernbank’s loan. Kachkar made false and fraudulent representations to Westernbank executives that he had additional collateral, including purported mines in Mexico and Canada worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to induce Westernbank to lend additional funds, the evidence showed. In fact, this additional collateral was worth barely a…
