Michael Diaz, Jr.

Languages Spoken

English

Spanish

Practice Areas

White Collar Crime, Government Sanctions (OFAC, Magnitsky, CAATSA, GLOMAG, etc.), investigations and defense

Regulatory and Corporate Investigations, Governance and Compliance

Fraud & Asset Recovery

Litigation and Arbitration

Athlete Representation & Entertainment Law

Bankruptcy, Creditors’ Rights, Asset Collections

Corporate, Business Transactions and International Trade

Estate & Tax Planning

Real Estate

Bankruptcy and Asset Recovery

Family Law

Career

Michael Diaz, Jr., is the founding and global managing partner of Diaz, Reus & Targ, LLP. Board Certified in International Litigation and Arbitration by The Florida Bar, he is a former prosecutor, multilingual corporate and trial lawyer, and arbitral advocate with 39 years of experience advising clients, trying cases, and negotiating resolutions for complex business, commercial, arbitral, and white-collar criminal matters.

Mr. Diaz has extensive experience handling federal criminal investigations, visa recovery efforts, FCPA, FARA and OFAC violations, and Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons classifications cases. He often conducts parallel investigations in complex, high-stakes regulatory, investigative and compliance matters that involve alleged white-collar and corruption crimes. His sophisticated asset tracing techniques have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in recoveries for U.S. government agencies, foreign governments and their entities, financial institutions, and individual fraud victims. His practice has involved client work across the United States, Latin America, Russia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Mr. Diaz is qualified to represent clients before all U.S administrative and governmental agencies, arbitral bodies, and U.S. state (Florida), federal, and appellate courts including the United States Supreme Court. He frequently serves as an advisory co-counsel outside the United States on sanctions, asset recovery, white-collar and corruption matters; and is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS).

Mr. Diaz served as an Assistant State Attorney in the Miami-Dade County State Attorney’s Office from 1986 to 1990 for the Honorable Janet Reno, former U.S. Attorney General and Miami-Dade State Attorney, where he investigated and prosecuted economic and major crimes cases including highly publicized cases such as, the Julia Tuttle Causeway Lovers Lane Double Murders and Murder of Rookie Miami Police Officer Nathaniel Broom.

In 1990, Mr. Diaz joined and later became a name Partner in an international litigation firm where he litigated complex financial and international money laundering cases. In 1998, he opened his own firm and has been engaged in the successful representation of Fortune 1000 multi-national corporations and foreign government entities involving financial and commercial transactions, regulatory investigations and complex commercial and financial fraud cases, asset recovery, and white-collar criminal defense. He successfully secured declination of prosecution for clients in the largest corruption, money laundering & FCPA case in South Florida history, Alejandro Andrade.

He has defended and investigated well known FCPA, OFAC, FARA and money laundering cases from PEMEX/Siemens & SK Engineering, PDVSA/Citgo to Prazkarel Michel and Yani Rosenthal, Montesinos to Aleman/Jerez and from Casablanca to Rosemont, and Ponzi schemes from Madoff to Stanford.

Mr. Diaz and his firm are one of a handful of firms selected by Alibaba (the largest e-commerce company in the world) to represent them globally. He and his firm have been consecutively recognized by Global Investigations Review (GIR) in the top 100 global firms, and the only U.S.-based Hispanic-led firm.

Mr. Diaz has been consecutively recognized and ranked in Legal500 USA for “Corporate Investigations and White-Collar Criminal Defense: Advice to Individuals”; “International Litigation” and ”City Elite Miami : Commercial and International Disputes” ; Legal 500 Latin America for “Miami firms” and “Compliance and Investigations”; Chambers Latin America and Chambers Global for “Corporate Crime & Investigations, Latin America-wide”; Chambers USA for ‘White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations’ and “Litigation, general commercial, Florida”; Best Lawyers USA for “International Arbitration – Governmental and Commercial”; Best Lawyers Panama for “Corporate and M&A law”; Latinvex Latin America’s Top 100 Lawyers: FCPA & Fraud; Arbitration & Litigation, Florida Super Lawyers International, Criminal Defense: White Collar, Business litigation, Immigration Law; and Global Investigation Review 100 (GIR100).

Admissions:

Florida

11th Circuit Court of Appeals

Southern District of Florida

Middle District of Florida

U.S. Supreme Court

2nd Circuit Court of Appeals of New York

U.S. Court of International Trade

Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS)

Professional Memberships

Florida Bar Association​

American Bar Association

International Bar Association

Cuban American Bar Association, Past-President, officer, and director

Member, Trial Law Institute

Member, Diversity Law Institute

Barrister, Order of Centurions

Advocate, Order of Certus

International Association of Lawyers and Professional Advisors

Miami International Arbitration Society

National and Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

Florida International Bankers Association

Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists

Member of the Board of Advisors of Latin America Advisor, a publication of The Dialogue, Leadership for the Americas.

Publications

GIR Global Investigations Around the World: USA: fresh legislation targets corporate crime and incentivises compliance: https://diazreus.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/United-States-fresh-legislation-targets-corporate-crime-and-incentivises-compliance-Global-Investigations-Review.pdf

The importance of collective power: https://www.ibanet.org/The-importance-of-collective-power

Processo para Moraes reverter sanção pode levar anos, diz advogado: https://www.poder360.com.br/poder-internacional/processo-para-moraes-reverter-sancao-pode-levar-anos-diz-advogado/

El regreso de Trump dispara el trabajo de los bufetes: https://diazreus.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Expansion-Nacional-04_Feb_2025.pdf

Education

Expert in these Jurisdictions

USA, Latin America, Russia, the Middle East, and Africa.