She wanted to divorce him, so he hired people to kill her. Now he’s dead.
The Dark Secrets of a Failed Marriage: Poison, Fire, and Murder for Hire
Tuesday, July 16, 2024, 67-year-old real estate developer Sergio Pino shot himself in his $8 million while the FBI surrounded his $7.9 million mansion in Coral Gables, Miami.
The federal agents were there to arrest Sergio for hiring two different murder crews to kill his wife Tatiana after she filed for divorce in 2022. Sergio’s lawyers deny that he tried to kill his wife and claim that law enforcement’s “unprecedented and unnecessary” response is responsible for his death at his own hands.
“He decided he was going to kill his wife,” said U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe said in a July 2024 news conference.
How did Sergio allegedly try to have Tatiana killed?
She was allegedly poisoned with fentanyl, at hit-and-run, arson, and an attempt to shoot her at her home.
The divorce
In April 2022 Tatiana Pino filed for divorce from Sergio Pino, but the attacks date back to 2019. She revealed her belief that he was trying to kill her with fentanyl in divorce documents.
She only discovered she’d been ingesting fentanyl when she was hospitalized for respiratory problems in 2022 and fentanyl was found in her system. In a sworn statement, she said she had never willingly taken the drug, which led her to believe she was being poisoned with it. (Fentanyl overdose causes respiratory issues.)
Tatiana then went to stay with her sister, where she completely recovered and had none of the symptoms she previously experienced.
In 2017, Tatiana had discovered that Sergio was having an affair.
How much was Sergio Pino worth?
As of 2021 financial documents, the couple was worth over $100 million.
Nine people have been arrested in connection with a murder-for-hire plot.
After Sergio was unsuccessful with allegedly slowly poisoning Tatiana with fentanyl, he hired two different crews to attack her.
In March of 2024 Bayron Bennett, a part-time employee of Sergio Pino, told police that he was asked to recruit people to attack Tatiana Pino.
He was charged, along with Michael Dulfo, Edner Etienne and Jerren Howard, with stalking Tatiana and a hit-and-run of her blue BMW at her house, and with attempted arson attempts in connection with her sister’s cars.
The second crew included Diori Barnard, Clementa Johnson, Vernon Green, Avery Bivins and Fausto Villar, the leader of the group. Like Bayron Bennett, Fausto Villar had worked for Sergio. He was also a convicted felon.
They were allegedly offered a total of $300,000 to kill Tatiana before their next divorce hearing on June 24: $150,000 for the hit and another $150,000 if no one connected Sergio to the murder.
The chilling 911 call
The Miami Herald obtained the 911 call of the couple’s daughter, Alessandra, calling police after a gunman hired to kill her mother pointed the gun at her. He ultimately decided not to kill Alessandra because he had not been hired to do so.
In the call Alessandra tells dispatchers that there’s a man with a gun at their residence and fears that her mother, Tatiana, has been shot. She said the man pointed at gun at her.
Her mother Tatiana had made it safely into the home, which is when the gunman pointing at Alessandra instead. Footage of the incident can be seen in a surveillance video.
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