Simon Alberto Gonzalez walked away with roughly $203,000 from an elderly Regions Bank customer’s accounts before anyone caught him. Ralph Mojica siphoned $33,300 from two elderly clients at First Interstate, then raided the teller cash recycler for another $8,000. Both are now banned from banking for life.
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors signed the prohibition orders this past week, Gonzalez’s on July 24 and Mojica’s on Monday. Gonzalez, an Orlando relationship banker, ran his scheme from August 2023 until he left Regions in November 2024. Mojica lasted four months as a Nampa, Idaho teller before First Interstate caught him between July and September 2025.
Neither order carries a fine. That’s the point of a prohibition order: it doesn’t touch a bank’s balance sheet, it just guarantees the person never touches a customer account again anywhere in the industry. Regions says it looped in police and helped recover the stolen funds, which matters for how examiners eventually score the bank’s internal controls.
This is the Fed doing basic hygiene, not headline enforcement. Stack it against the $46 million penalty the same regulator hit Regions with in 2014 over loan-reporting failures, and the contrast is sharp: that was a systems problem, examiners against spreadsheets. Gonzalez and Mojica are a people problem, and the Fed’s response fits, banishment instead of a check.
The bans stand unless the Board’s governors “expressly” lift them in writing. Don’t hold your breath.
— Marcus Webb