MIAMI (Reuters) – U.S. authorities are increasing efforts to crack down on criminal gangs in Colombia that are running cocaine to Mexican drug kingpins who are at war with Mexico’s security forces.

On Wednesday, a Miami federal grand jury indicted Diego Perez Henao, a suspected Colombian drug trafficker alleged to be the leader of one such criminal gang, known by its Spanish-language acronym as “Bacrims.”

, Feb 8 (Reuters) – Investors may be more
finicky when it comes to emerging markets after violence in
Egypt and stronger U.S. data drove record net redemptions from
the sector’s biggest exchange traded fund last week.

Exchange traded equity funds registered net outflows of
$2.173 billion in the week ended Feb. 2 as investors were
rattled by political upheaval in Egypt. The largest flows came
from emerging markets, according to data from Lipper, a Thomson
Reuters service.

MIAMI (Reuters) – A father-and-son team of Miami-based property developers was sentenced to 10 years in jail on Friday for failing to report more than $49 million of income in a case that marked the first trial since the start of an intensified U.S. crackdown on offshore tax evasion.

Mauricio Cohen and his son, Leon Cohen Levy, both clients of HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe’s largest bank, were convicted in October of using shell entities and offshore tax havens to hide tens of millions of dollars from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

MIAMI, Feb 1 (Reuters) – Banks operating in Florida are
criticizing a U.S. proposal that would require banks across the
country to report to American tax authorities interest earned
by U.S. bank accounts held by foreigners.

Florida is a leading banking center in the United States
and home to at least $50 billion in deposits from non-U.S.
residents, many of them from Latin America, according to
banking officials.

MIAMI (Reuters) – Temperatures in Florida’s citrus growing zones warmed on Wednesday, giving growers a respite after a cold snap caused fruit damage in the U.S. state that accounts for about 40 percent of the world’s orange juice supply.

“I think in the citrus areas we saw temperatures in the low 30s (Fahrenheit) rather than the 20s we saw yesterday,” meteorologist Logan Johnson of the NWS’s Tampa Bay area told Reuters.

MIAMI (Reuters) – A man traveling with bullet parts in a suitcase was arrested at Miami’s international airport on Tuesday after his luggage caused a small explosion on the tarmac, causing no injuries or damage, authorities said.

Law enforcement officials said they did not believe the incident had any links to terrorism. The FBI described the man as a 37-year-old nationalized U.S. citizen traveling en route to Jamaica. Authorities did not specify his previous nationality.

MIAMI (Reuters) – A former UBS banker pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges he helped wealthy American clients hide their money from U.S. tax authorities as American officials stepped up a crackdown on offshore tax evasion.

Renzo Gadola, a Swiss citizen who worked at UBS AG from 1995 to 2008 and was arrested last month, entered his plea in a Miami federal court.

MIAMI, Dec 15 (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors have charged
a former UBS banker with encouraging his wealthy American
clients not to disclose to U.S. tax authorities that they had
money in offshore accounts.

Renzo Gadola, an investment adviser based in Switzerland,
faces charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States, the
U.S. attorney’s office in Miami said in a statement on
Wednesday.

MIAMI, Nov 19 (Reuters) – Wealthy Latin Americans, buoyed
by their region’s economic recovery, are pouring more of their
money into investments closer to home and corporate and
government bonds are the assets of choice.

“We’re seeing Latin Americans are becoming more interested
in Latin America in general,” said Isabelle Wheeler, a senior
vice president at BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) who works with the
bank’s clients in the region. “So we’ll see Peruvians buying
Chile and Mexicans buying Brazil.”

MIAMI (Reuters) – Turks and Caicos authorities on Thursday handed over to U.S. custody a Jamaican banker accused of running a Ponzi scheme that bilked investors in Florida and the Caribbean out of more than $220 million.

David A. Smith, who was serving a six-and-a-half year prison sentence in the British Caribbean territory for fraud and conspiracy offenses, faces charges in Florida of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering.