Gus Lopez, a former Miami Beach, Florida procurement director, was arrested Monday after he was accused of selling confidential information regarding city projects to construction organizations, news sources indicate. Also arrested was Pierre Landrin, identified as an accomplice, and Lopez's wife, Maria Alejandra Pineda. Lopez, 52, and Landrin, 47, were booked into the Miami-Dade County Jail on charges of racketeering, money laundering, and bid tampering. Pineda, 33, was booked into jail on charges of money laundering. Lopez's bail bond was set at $780,000. It is not yet known whether the defendants have retained private criminal defense lawyers.
Reports say Lopez once worked as the procurement director of the city of Miami Beach. During his time as director, one of his purported responsibilities was supervising construction bids for a city improvement program on the Miami Beach Convention Center. However, reports indicate that Lopez resigned from the position when investigators found emails that suggested he might be scheming to set up his own construction outfit to accept the job. Despite the allegation, detectives never charged Lopez with misconduct.
According to reports, Lopez and Landrin met while working for the Miami-Dade school district. Landrin, who works for the Miami-Dade public school system, established his own consulting firm called Almani Marketing several years ago. As part of this more recent scheme, authorities accuse Landrin of acting as a consultant, trading off the confidential information, receiving the money, and splitting the profits with Lopez, reports say.
Detectives allege that as many as a dozen construction organizations actively seeking work within the city reached out to Landrin for the illicit information, which purportedly included how much money firms were bidding for local projects. The information was reportedly leaked from the district's "Job Order Contracting" project, which allowed local construction companies to bid on jobs within the city. After purchasing inside information from Landrin, the companies would find the lowest bid and bid lower to win the contract.
In one such purported case, detectives accused Lopez and Landrin of leaking information regarding a lavatory improvement program on 35th Street to Harbour Construction. Using the inside information, Harbour placed a low bid on the project and won the job, reports say. According to reports, Landrin and Lopez each received $6,000 for their efforts.