Health & Fitness
40 Million in Mortgage Fraud, it Takes a Village
It takes a "team" of scammers to pull off mortgage fraud that costs $40 million
It must take an amazing amount of planning and a number of players to make it all work. It always boggles my mind how often these scammers are able to pull this stuff off. They can’t sentence these guy to long enough terms in prison.
In my area, there were two attorney’s that pulled off a multimillion dollar scam on a bunch of banks and mortgage companies. They asked for payoff’s for refinances, did new mortgages and never paid off the underlying debt. How did they not believe they were going to get caught?
Ten Charged With $40 Million Jersey Shore Mortgage Fraud
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By: Business Week
Ten people were charged with a $40 million fraud relying on phony documents and straw buyers to bilk mortgage lenders for properties at the New Jersey Shore and resorts in South Carolina and Georgia, prosecutors said.
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The 10 were accused today of using unqualified buyers to purchase 28 oceanfront condominiums from financially distressed developers in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey, according to an indictment in federal court in Camden, New Jersey. They used similar methods to buy 21 properties in Georgia and South Carolina, and eight properties in foreclosure in New Jersey.
Prosecutors said the scheme caused more than $40 million in losses to various lenders. Nine of the 10 charged were arrested, including Joseph Witkowski, 66, who helped to locate properties to buy; Isatu Tejan-Sie, 54, a loan representative at Citigroup Inc. (C); and Robert Serao, 46, a former loan officer at Wells Fargo& Co. (WFC), the government said.
After mortgage loans were approved, Witkowski and others “took proceeds from the fraudulent mortgage loans by having funds wired or checks deposited into various accounts they controlled,” according to the indictment.
Witkowski and others told straw buyers they “would maintain the properties, locate renters, collect rent and make mortgage payments,” according to the indictment.
“After the first or second monthly mortgage payments, there were no more payments on most of the properties, and on others, only nominal payments which then ceased,” Stephen Stigall, an assistant U.S. attorney, said in an interview.
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