Sergio Pino, a prominent South Florida developer, shot himself in the head on July 16, spraying his blood over the bedroom of his waterfront Coral Gables mansion.

He was just days away from being arrested for hiring not one but two crews to kill his wife of 32 years before their contentious — and lucrative for Tatiana Pino — divorce was final, WTVJ reported.

Neither crew was successful, and at least four people were already in jail related to the murder for hire plot when Pino, 67, took himself out of the equation.

Those four people were arrested in March and indicted in a stalking conspiracy that also included setting fire to three cars outside the home of Tatiana Pino’s sister and an attempt to hit Tatiana with a rented Home Depot flat bed truck as she drove home from a divorce hearing in 2023.

The second crew of four was given a deadline of June 24 to commit the murder and was to be paid $150,000, with another $150,ooo if Pino was not connected with it. The day after Pino’s death, five more people had been charged in the murder for hire plot.

Tatiana Pino filed for divorce in April 2022. The case was finally headed to court in July this year, but the court granted Sergio Pino a delay until January because of the federal investigation, which included allegations of poisoning, arson, and stalking. Pino called the allegations false and said he was “overwhelmed and distraught” by them, WTVJ reported.

A week later, he was dead by his own hand.

The day after Pino’s death, the number of people arrested in the conspiracy was up to nine.

2nd Attempt on Tatiana Pino’s life

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Markenzy Lapointe said at a news conference the day after the suicide that the second crew followed Tatiana home one night in June, and one of them got out of the vehicle with a gun, trying to chase her, but she got into the house safely.

One of the Pinos’ adult daughters came out of the house and the gunman pointed his weapon at her head, Lapointe said, but decided not to kill her but it wasn’t the job.

Allessandra Pino, the daughter, called 911, WPLG reported. “Please, someone with a gun is here,” she says in the recording released a month later. “There’s a gun, there’s a guy with a gun, please.”

“What do you mean, there’s a guy with a gun?” the dispatcher asks.

“Yes, he just pointed a gun at me and they’re still here,” the daughter replies.

The incident was captured on surveillance video, according to the criminal complaint.

Recorded Phone Call Between Alleged Conspirators

In July, before Pino took his own life, one of the men implicated in the murder for hire plot agreed to cooperate with federal investigators, according to WTVJ. Avery Bivins told investigators that Fauso Villar, who he had met while both served time in a Florida state prison, had recruited him for one of the murder crews. Bivins agreed to record a call with Villar, which he did on July 15.

Pino had hired a roofing company owned by Villar’s wife to work on his Coral Gables mansion, and, prosecutors say, he turned to Villar to get rid of his own wife. Bivins’ call with Villar was played during a detention hearing for Villar in August, and it was released earlier this month after the Miami Herald petitioned for it.

In the call, Villar sounds concerned that Bivins is about to be arrested — as at least two of the crew already were. He urges Bivins to clear his social media accounts.

“You should erase your ‘gram. You erase your ‘gram,” he says. “You delete … delete. Do that for me, erase that. And then I’m going to go zero-dark-30 on this s*** for a while.”

Villar tells Bivins that Pino knows the FBI is monitoring him, so no further money can be expected for now. After sounding worried through much of the call, Villar ended on an optimistic note.

“When this b**** gets over and done with know this, we’re all good, you know what I’m saying,” he says. “Everything is going to be good.”

After the call ended, Villar called Pino on WhatsApp and they chatted for just over three minutes, prosecutors said.

Bivins also provided the FBI with a potential motive for the murder. He said Villar had told him Tatiana Pino rejected her husband’s offer of a $20 million divorce settlement because financial documents showed his worth to be significantly higher.

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[Featured image: Sergio Pino and Tatiana Pino/WTVJ screenshot]