Sergio Pino, a prominent and wealthy developer in South Florida, was found dead by suicide inside his home amid an FBI investigation into criminal allegations in his bitter divorce battle with his wife of 32 years. NBC6’s Tony Pipitone reports
Prominent Miami-Dade homebuilder Sergio Pino was found dead at his home amid an FBI investigation on Tuesday, authorities confirmed.
The FBI was conducting a search and arrest operation at Pino's $8 million Coral Gables home at 142 Isla Dorada Blvd.
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"Upon arrival, members of the FBI Miami SWAT team attempted to call out any occupants of the residence. When there was no response, the SWAT team entered the residence and conducted a methodical search to locate the subject. Ultimately, Mr. Pino was discovered alone in an upstairs bedroom," the FBI said in a statement.
That's where Pino was found to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the agency said.
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Authorities lifted a large black tarp to obscure the body, which was moved on a stretcher from the home directly to the medical examiner's van.
"The ultimate determination of cause of death will come from the medical examiner’s office," the FBI said.
The investigation was connected to an ongoing murder-for-hire investigation stemming from the fall of 2023, according to authorities. Though the FBI did not provide further details, on Aug. 30, 2023, Tatiana Pino was the victim of a hit-and-run outside her home in Pinecrest as she returned from a hearing in her divorce case, and it is one of the criminal investigations swirling around their separation.
The FBI was also carrying out another operation on Tuesday at 9720 Bel Aire Drive in Miami. There, the FBI said "the subject was arrested without incident and a search of that location was conducted."
No more information was immediately provided.
Sergio and Tatiana Pino were married for 32 years. Allegations – involving claims of poisoning, arson, and stalking – are part of an ongoing federal investigation that has already resulted in the arrests of four people, including a man who Tatiana Pino identified as having worked for the couple on their yacht.
Sergio Pino was not yet charged with a crime, but the FBI has confirmed it searched the couple’s home in the affluent Cocoplum neighborhood and his business offices as part of an ongoing investigation in June.
"Based upon all I have learned during two years of representing Sergio, there is nothing to indicate that he ever harmed or wanted to harm his wife. He was a gentle and kind man, loved and respected by the many people he employed at his businesses. He loved his children and grandchildren and talked of little else," Sergio Pino's attorney, Deanna S. Shifrin, said in a statement to NBC6 on Tuesday. "I do believe that the combination of unnecessarily destructive divorce litigation along with selective and salacious media coverage was humiliating to him and led to this tragedy."
On Tuesday, at least a dozen law enforcement vehicles could be seen outside the home. Windows were broken, and residents reported hearing flash bangs. Members of the public were asked to avoid the area.
Pino heads a building empire in Miami-Dade, much of it under the auspices of Century Homebuilders Group, whose website says it is the largest Hispanic-owned homebuilder in the nation. He has served as a president of the politically powerful Latin Builders Association.
Over their decades together, Tatiana has often appeared by his side at formal events, but the public image of a happy, wealthy couple began to fade when she filed for divorce in April 2022.
If you see the word “Century” in a Miami-Dade development, it likely began with the Pino family and it’s made Sergio Pino and company very wealthy.
One financial statement cited during his November 2023 deposition in the divorce case puts his and Tatiana’s combined net worth in 2021 at $359 million; another produced in that same deposition put it at $153 million. Pino testified he created the larger statement of financial position as “a joke” that included “made up” numbers, and said the smaller net worth statement was accurate.
Whatever the amount, how much of it that is rightfully Tatiana’s lies at the heart of a two-year divorce battle, one now featured in a federal criminal case involving four men indicted in what the feds call a “stalking conspiracy.”
Surveillance video shows a rented Home Depot flatbed truck waiting outside her home. As she arrives, the truck is thrown into reverse and circles backward, accelerating as it crashes into her passenger side door, then speeds away.
Michael Dulfo, one of the defendants investigators said was connected to the Home Depot rental, later told those investigators he was “contracted” to commit the crime “by someone working for the opposing party” in the Pino divorce case, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.
And when Tatiana was questioned about possible suspects, the FBI says she recognized one of them – 32-year-old Bayron Bennett – as having worked on the Pinos’ yacht.
The criminal complaint against Bennett says he admitted soliciting Dulfo to commit the hit and run, as well as the torching of three vehicles in 2022 and 2023 outside this house belonging to Tatiana Pino’s sister. He told agents someone asked him to seek out others to commit crimes against Tatiana, according to the complaint, which does not name who that “someone” may be.
Asked in a general sense what is going on here, Tatiana’s attorney Raymond Rafool told NBC6 that is ultimately a matter for the FBI.
“That's what the investigation is,” he said. “And what's going on is what they are determining, but I think it's pretty clear to everybody what's going on.”
Sergio Pino’s attorney, Deanna Shifrin, told NBC6 in a statement at least one thing is clear: Sergio Pino is an innocent man.
“We can categorically state that Mr. Pino was not involved in any of the alleged conduct,” Shifrin said.
For more on the divorce case, go here.
This is a developing story. Refresh for updates.
