In the following press release the Orange County District Attorney announced that a married couple and their mortgage broker will be arraigned tomorrow for defrauding over $3.6 million from banks in a mortgage fraud scheme by illegally securing several mortgage loans on the same property by falsifying and omitting information on loan applications. A 23-count complaint was filed Nov. 24, 2009, against five defendants. Nafees Quidwai, Sabhia Quidwai, and Mailan Tran are each being held on $500,000 bail and must prove that the money is from a legal and legitimate source before posting bail. They are scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow, Dec. 15, 2009, at 8:30 a.m. in Department C-55, Central Justice Center, Santa Ana. A $500,000 warrant has been issued for the arrests of Cuc Doan and Trieu Nguyen.

Tran, a mortgage broker who previously owned Money One Lending in Westminster, is accused of being the mastermind of the mortgage fraud scheme. A mortgage fraud scheme is a fraudulent scheme in which defendants deliberately omit or misrepresent facts with the intention of defrauding lenders. In this scheme, the defendants are accused of securing multiple mortgages for each property without disclosing that information to the banks. The banks would not have approved the loans if they had the true information.

Property #1

On Oct. 2, 2006, defendants Tran and Doan are accused of applying for and receiving the money from a $250,000 mortgage loan from Bank of America on Doan’s $407,000 home in Corona, despite already having a mortgage on the Riverside County property. The two defendants are accused of falsifying the mortgage application by reporting fictitious occupational information for Doan. They are accused of claiming on the loan application that Doan was an executive at a fictional company named Westcoast Biolab making a six figure salary. Two days later, the defendants are also accused of applying for and receiving an additional fraudulent $235,000 mortgage loan from Wells Fargo for the same home owned by Doan. Tran and Doan are accused of falsifying the application by not reporting Doan’s two other mortgages and falsely providing the same fake company, job, and salary information. The defendants are accused of receiving approximately $500,000 from the bank in cash, checks, or wire transfers for personal use.

Property #2

Between Feb. 1, 2005, and Feb. 5, 2007, defendants Tran and Nguyen are accused of engaging in a similar fraudulent scheme by applying for four additional mortgage loans at four different banks for Nguyen’s Rosemead home in Los Angeles County. These two defendants are accused of falsifying Nguyen’s occupational information on all four applications and failing to report any of the mortgage loans previously taken out on the home. Tran and Nguyen are accused of listing the same fictional company, job title, and salary that was used on Doan’s two mortgage applications. These defendants are accused of receiving the money from the four mortgage loans from Mortgage It, Bank of America, Cal National, and Washington Mutual for Nguyen’s property, which was initially appraised at $550,000. The banks approved the loans based on the fraudulent information. The defendants are accused of receiving approximately $1.5 million from the bank in cash, checks, or wire transfers for personal use.

Property #3

Between Feb. 1, 2007, and Feb. 22, 2007, defendants Tran and Nafees Quidwai are accused of applying for and obtaining five additional mortgages at five different banks for Quidwai’s $900,000 home in Fountain Valley. Tran and married couple Nafees and Sabiha Quidwai are all accused of falsifying the mortgage applications by reporting fictitious occupational information for Nafees Quidwai. These defendants are accused of using the same false company name, job title, and salary for Nafees Quidwai as for the other defendants on their applications at Bankers West Funding Corporation, California National Bank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Washington Mutual. The banks approved all five of the loans based on the fraudulent information. The defendants are accused of receiving approximately $2 million from the bank in wire transfers for personal use. Tran is accused of accepting $140,000 from the Quidwais for obtaining the loans.

In January 2008, the fraud was discovered by bank investigators, who noticed discrepancies in the defendants’ loan applications. Further investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealed that the company the defendants listed on their applications was not real. In September 2009, the FBI referred the case to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office (OCDA) for further joint investigation.

On Dec. 8, 2009, Tran was arrested by Newport Beach Police outside of her home. That same day, the Quidwais were arrested by Fountain Valley Police outside of their home. A warrant has been issued for the arrests of Doan and Nguyen.

The OCDA is prosecuting a consolidated case for all three counties based on the common scheme used and because Tran’s office is located in Westminster. The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with additional information is encouraged to contact Supervising District Attorney Investigator Ron Frazier at (714) 347-8691.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Pete Pierce of the Major Fraud Unit is prosecuting this case.

In the following press release Queens (NY) District Attorney Richard A. Brown today announced that a Queens Village woman who is a loan officer has been convicted of stealing the personal identity of a former client to help another client purchase a house in Brooklyn.

District Attorney Brown said, “This conviction shows that we have no intention of ignoring the serious crime of identity theft – particularly when it occurs in connection with a real estate scheme. Our Economic Crimes Bureau will continue to vigorously prosecute these cases.”

District Attorney Brown identified the defendant as Janet Salazar, a.k.a.Yanet Salazar, 37, of 88-49 Francis Lewis Boulevard in Queens Village. She was convicted yesterday of first-degree identity theft, third-degree unlawful possession of personal identification information and third degree criminal possession of stolen property following a jury trial before Queens Supreme Court Justice Darrell L. Gavrin. She faces up to seven years in prison when she is sentenced on January 22, 2010. Salazar was employed as a loan officer at Contour Mortgage Corp., 1900 Hempstead Turnpike, Suite 206, in East Meadow, Long Island, at the time of the transaction. Her company ultimately did not issue the mortgage, but the defendant co-brokered the deal with JRL Equities in Nassau County.

Her co-defendants, Elba Garcia and Olga Espinal, pleaded guilty at the start of the trial. Garcia, 53, of 92-16 Whitney Avenue, in Elmhurst, who is a realtor, pleaded guilty to first-degree identity theft, third-degree unlawful possession of personal identification information and third degree criminal possession of stolen property. She will be sentenced on January 21, 2010. Espinal, 46, of 108-16 48th Avenue in Corona, who impersonated the victim, pleaded guilty to third-degree identity theft. She will be sentenced on February 1, 2010. Garcia and Espinal are expected to be sentenced to community service. Garcia additionally faces probation and restitution of $20,381.

The District Attorney said that the investigation began in August 2007 when Queens resident Aurora Solano received notice in the mail indicating that a mortgage for $589,000 had been issued in her name and that a monthly payment of over $5,000 was due on September 1, 2007. Solano, who did not apply for a mortgage or authorize anyone to use her personal identification, reported the incident to the police.

District Attorney Brown said that, according to the trial testimony, Solano provided her personal identification information to Salazar and Garcia in early 2007 for a loan application for a property in Queens. The deal subsequently fell through and the sale did not go forward. According to testimony, Solano was initially contacted by Garcia and Salazar before July 31, 2007, and offered $10,000 to go to a closing to sign for a property for which Garcia was the realtor. The property, in Brooklyn, was being purchased by a man named Aquilino Sanchez, who had bad credit but had the money to make mortgage payments.

Solano said that on July 31, 2007, both Garcia and Salazar came to her home and spent hours, again, trying to convince her to attend the closing for the $589,000 house located at 328 Euclid Avenue in Brooklyn. Solano again refused to attend the closing.

According to testimony, Garcia and Salazar were several hours late for the closing. They arrived with a woman who purported to be Solano – defendant Olga Espinal. The scheme unraveled when the mortgage bill was sent to Solano’s home instead of to the Euclid Avenue address, which is where Sanchez said Garcia told him it would be sent. Salazar received a commission of $10,000 for her role in the sale and Garcia received more than $20,000.

The investigation was conducted by Detective Raymond Phillips of the110th Precinct Detective Squad under the supervision of Sergeant Eugene Marcadia and Lieutenant Anthony Mottola. Detective Oniell Miller of the NYPD’s QDA Squad, under the supervision of Captain John M. Zanfardino, and Detective Jerome D. Pugh, of the District Attorney’s Detective Bureau, under the supervision of Lawrence J. Festa, Chief, and Albert D. Velardi, Deputy Chief, assisted in the investigation.

Assistant District Attorney Allison Wright, of the District Attorney’s Economic Crimes Bureau, prosecuted the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Gregory C. Pavlides, Bureau Chief, and Christina Hanophy, Deputy Bureau Chief, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Peter A. Crusco and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney Linda M. Cantoni.?

A federal grand jury has indicted Dema Daiga, age 28, of College Park, Maryland and Oluseun Oshosanya, age 29, of Laurel, Maryland, for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft arising from a scheme to defraud a mortgage lending company of approximately $664,493, announced United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein.  The indictment was returned on December 2, 2009 and unsealed on December 23, 2009 upon the arrests of the defendants.  Daiga is scheduled to have his detention hearing today at 11:30 a.m. and Oshosanya is scheduled to have his initial appearance today at 2:30 p.m.

According to the 12 count indictment, Daiga worked at times as a mortgage loan broker and had assisted with property appraisals.  Oshosanya also worked in the mortgage lending field.  From August to December 16, 2008, the defendants allegedly recruited straw purchasers to apply for mortgages.  These straw purchasers lacked the income and assets to qualify as borrowers or make the monthly mortgage payments.  The defendants allegedly: filled out mortgage loan applications on behalf of the straw purchasers with false information about the straw purchasers’ employment histories, earnings and assets; provided telephone numbers that were under their control to any person calling to confirm the false information regarding the straw purchaser’s employment and earnings; generated fake monthly bank account statements to make it appear that the straw purchasers had sufficient assets to make the down payments, when instead, the defendants paid the down payments; on at least two occasions, used stolen information about another person’s identity to apply for mortgage loans; caused appraisals to be performed that inflated the property values; and instructed the title companies to send a substantial part of the loan proceeds to the defendants, or to businesses that they controlled.

Five of six Baltimore properties purchased under this scheme swiftly went into default, resulting in a loss to a Beltsville mortgage lending company of approximately $664,493.

An indictment is not a finding of guilt.  An individual charged by indictment is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty at some later criminal proceedings. 

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein thanked the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service for their investigative work.  Mr. Rosenstein commended Assistant United States Attorney Jefferson M. Gray, who is prosecuting the case.