Miami developer Rishi Kapoor was the CEO of Location Ventures.
Developer Rishi Kapoor, a once-rising star in Miami’s real estate world who made inroads in South Florida political circles, was sentenced to 11 years and four months in prison Thursday after pleading guilty to a pair of money-laundering and payroll-tax conspiracy charges stemming from a federal indictment accusing him of directing an $89 million fraud scheme.
Appearing before U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore in Miami federal court Thursday afternoon, Kapoor appeared stoic in a beige jumpsuit, shackled and with a light-gray beard. He addressed the court in a statement that emphasized his newfound commitment to religion, saying he has acknowledged his “sins and crimes.” Kapoor apologized to investors, former employees and family, saying he was sorry for having “created scars.”
Kapoor, 42, was arrested in early March on a sweeping 37-count indictment. Prosecutors say Kapoor, who is the former CEO of Location Ventures and URBIN companies and had ties to mayors in Miami and Coral Gables, owes at least $70 million in restitution to over 50 investors in his South Florida residential projects. At least $800,000 in restitution is owed to the IRS.
In May, Kapoor pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to defraud the United States for failing to remit his employees’ payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare benefits between 2020 and 2022. Kapoor also did not file personal income-tax returns from 2019 to 2023, according to the indictment.
Kapoor also pleaded guilty to one money-laundering charge accusing him of transferring $820,559 from his personal bank account as a down payment on a $5 million purchase of a 68-foot Princess yacht in 2022.
He faced a maximum sentence of 15 years on those two counts.
In a letter to the judge ahead of his sentencing hearing, Kapoor said he “fully accept[s] responsibility for my crimes without hesitation or excuse.”
“My family lost not only millions of dollars but also the son and brother they believed in and relied on,” Kapoor wrote. “My beloved and devoted wife was left with a husband who endangered her well-being through a mirage. Cumulatively, I have sinned before my God to such an extent that I came to believe my death would be better than my life. I am ashamed of myself, and I have carried that shame every minute of every day since the collapse of my company in July 2023.”
‘Not a Ponzi scheme’
In sentencing Kapoor to more than 11 years in prison, the judge sided with prosecutors, who recommended a sentence of 136 months. Kapoor’s attorneys had hoped for 121 months, or just over 10 years, which is at the low end of the sentencing guidelines. Kapoor’s lawyers also disagreed with prosecutors’ characterization of Kapoor’s activities as constituting an $89 million fraud scheme, saying Kapoor himself only made $6 million in income — including his Location Ventures salary — during the relevant eight-year period.
“This is not a Ponzi scheme,” Don Samuel, one of Kapoor’s attorneys, told the judge. “He was not swindling anybody.”
Prosecutor Elizabeth Young, however, said Kapoor raised $89 million in investor funds “through fraudulent misrepresentations” and that he would use the funds intended for one real estate project for another. In one instance, Kapoor bought property in Montana using deposits from condo buyers in Miami Beach — funds that should have been used for the Miami Beach project, according to the indictment.
Multiple investor victims were in court Thursday, Young said, and one addressed the judge directly. Rob Porges, a resident of Villa Valencia, one of Kapoor’s projects in Coral Gables, said he and his wife invested about $500,000 in Location Ventures and have yet to see even a $1 return.
Porges said Kapoor deliberately built trust with him by extending social invitations and repeatedly offering reassurances. Once Kapoor built that trust and persuaded Porges to invest, Porges said Kapoor “exploited” it. Kapoor would repeatedly promise he’d return their money, Porges said, continuing a cycle of “hope, anxiety and betrayal.”
Porges said that because of his investment in Location Ventures, he has had to delay his own retirement and now experiences anxiety, anger, sleeplessness and loss of concentration. The situation has damaged his confidence, peace of mind and ability to trust others, Porges said.
Greg Brooks, the former Location Ventures CFO whose bombshell lawsuit in 2023 opened the Pandora’s box about the host of issues the company was facing, was also present in the court gallery Thursday but did not address the judge.
As part of the plea deal, Kapoor agreed to a $820,559 forfeiture money judgment. Kapoor must also forfeit a platinum ring that was purchased with a $28,405 down payment. Prosecutors alleged the ring was purchased with misappropriated investor funds, along with the yacht and a $5.9 million home in the neighborhood of Cocoplum.
Prosecutors say Kapoor also owes more than $70 million to his real estate companies’ investment victims and in outstanding taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. But the chances of him being able pay back investors look slim. The parties set a restitution hearing for November.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida wrote in a filing this month that “there is no sign that Kapoor will be prepared at sentencing to make a meaningful restitution payment to his investors” and that the government has asked Kapoor to consent to forfeit the ring and a luxury car, “the only apparent assets left.”
Citing his education — including a University of Miami law degree — as well as millions given to him by his father to start Location Ventures, where Kapoor drew a legitimate salary of over $300,000, prosecutors said Kapoor “did not need this money, a fact that makes this crime so egregious.”
“This was a fraud driven by want, not need,” prosecutor Elizabeth Young of the U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote in the filing.
Kapoor gained notoriety in 2023 when the Miami Herald broke a story revealing that he had hired then-Miami Mayor Francis Suarez as a $10,000-a-month consultant for URBIN while the company was developing a major project in Coconut Grove. In neighboring Coral Gables, Kapoor rented a small space in a commercial building intended to be used as a showroom for a planned luxury high-rise project that was never built. Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago, one of the commercial building’s owners, was Kapoor’s landlord until the fall of 2023, Lago said. Suarez, whose second term as mayor ended in 2025, and Lago, who is still mayor, have denied any wrongdoing.
As part of his plea deal, Kapoor admitted to stealing condo deposits made by about 30 buyers in URBIN’s condo project at Commodore Plaza in Coconut Grove.
“Kapoor swindled investors in his real estate company out of more than $85 million, did not pay taxes on the roughly $6 million he personally made, withheld his employees’ taxes and then embezzled their withholdings, and submitted false bank statements to banks to get loans,” Young, the prosecutor, wrote in a filing this month.
Location Ventures and URBIN, before their collapse in 2023, developed and planned several mixed-use condo projects in Coral Gables, Miami and Miami Beach. Kapoor’s world began to unravel that year as Location Ventures ousted Kapoor as CEO and appointed a judge to oversee liquidation of company assets. The SEC filed suit against Kapoor in December 2023 and then obtained a federal judge’s order freezing his bank accounts and other properties to preserve his remaining assets to help pay back investors in his firm’s residential projects.
Despite the mounting issues Kapoor faced at the time, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said he did not attempt to course-correct.
“Did Kapoor work to pay back the money he owes the investors after being exposed back in 2023? No,” Young wrote. “Kapoor instead split his time between Fort Lauderdale and his rented home in Atlanta (where his wife was drawing substantial income ranging from $11,500 to $20,000 a month for purportedly working for Kapoor’s father and as a real estate agent), driving back [and] forth in his expensive luxury car.”
Miami Herald Staff Writer Jay Weaver contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 27, 2026 at 4:10 PM.
Tess Riski covers Miami City Hall. She joined the Miami Herald in 2022 and has covered local politics throughout Miami-Dade County. She is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School’s Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism.