ALABAMA - It has been more than two months since Sergio Pino, a renowned Miami developer and an influential figure in the Latino community in Florida was found dead in his Coral Gables mansion. But recent records released to the public by a judge continue to link the former real estate mogul to the attempted murder of his estranged wife right before Pino committed suicide.
As reported by The Latin Times in July, the developer was involved in a murder-for-hire scandal when Tatiana Pino, during their ongoing divorce proceedings, accused him of poisoning her with fentanyl, She also claimed that the wealthy Florida developer had organized arson and stalking against her and her sister.
A federal investigation into another failed murder attempt back in 2022 yielded the arrest of four people, including a man who Tatiana Pino identified as having worked for the couple on their yacht. She suggested a financial motive behind the alleged attempts on her life back. And as Pino planned another attempt to murder his wife, agents leading a raid on his Coral Gables mansion found him dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
After a motion by The Miami Herald was filed to intervene in the case, a recording of a call between a man who did some work on the developer's roof and another individual was made available to the general public. And although the roofer, Fausto Villar, did not mention Pino by name in the phone call, he alluded to the developer and Pino's grave concern about authorities closing in on him.
The call involved Villar and Avery Bivins, the two had been hired by Pino to kill his estranged wife, according to the FBI. The call took place a day before Pino's July 16th suicide. According to the audio recording and court transcript of Bivins' cellphone conversation with Villar, the wealthy Miami-Dade developer was deeply worried that a few of the murder-for-hire crew members had already been under arrest and potentially talking to FBI agents.
During the long phone call, Villar pressured Bivins to join a cover-up, including urging him to delete WhatsApp text messages as well as his Instagram account "until the smoke clears." But before the call, Bivins had already agreed to inform the FBI on the roofer and Pino.
Thanks to Bivins' cooperation, Villar and eight other men were charged with playing roles in the murder-for-hire conspiracy to kill Tatiana Pino. By the time Bivins made the phone call to Villar on July 15, three of the suspects in their crew had already been arrested.
But according to the FBI-taped called, Villar had grown suspicious of Bivins and even asked him to turn on the video feature so that he could see him. Bivins seemed to have earned Villar's trust when the roofer told him that, by the end of the murder-for-hire conspiracy, he was sure "there will be a gift for me and, like, for you," Villar said.
The "gift" mentioned by Villar during his last phone call with his former prison mate was a reward for carrying out the murder without detection. According to court documents, Pino was willing to pay $150,000 for the murder contract's completion and an additional $150,000 if the suspects were not caught.
A superseding indictment filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office also revealed that Villar provided two cash payments of $30,000 and $45,000 up front during two separate meetings with Bivins, as well as syringes, vials and injections for use in the plot targeting Tatiana Pino.
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