Interthinx has enhanced its flagship FraudGUARD product with new variances to help detect occupancy issues related to mortgage fraud. The changes come in response to a disturbing trend the company uncovered in its quarterly fraud risk reports. Occupancy fraud showed a slight quarter-over-quarter increase in the third-quarter 2009 report, which alerted the Interthinx product team to study issues including occupancy fraud, buy and bail schemes, straw buyers, risks associated with delinquency/default, and risks associated with increased home value.Read more

A Downey, Calif. woman who orchestrated a real estate fraud scheme that caused nearly $13 million in losses after falsely promising to help homeowners in default on their mortgages has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. A second person involved in the scheme was sentenced yesterday to 15 years in prison after a federal judge determined that he had refused to account for proceeds of the scheme in an off-shore bank account that he had agreed in his plea agreement to repatriate.Read more

A federal grand jury in San Francisco has indicted Michael Ohayon and David Papera with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and money laundering, United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced. According to the indictment, Ohayon and Papera are alleged to have recruited 13 straw buyers who used their good credit scores to obtain more than $19.6 million in fraudulent residential mortgage loans from Washington Mutual Bank, with no intention of making either downpayments or mortgage payments on the properties.Read more

Judy “Miu Wan” Yeung was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, eight counts of wire fraud, and three counts of witness tampering by a federal jury, United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced. The jury, after deliberating for one day, found that Yeung engaged in a mortgage fraud conspiracy between approximately December 2004 and January 2007. Yeung, together with two mortgage brokers, recruited five individuals to submit loan applications in their names in order to obtain loans totaling more than $6.5 million.Read more

A two-year investigation by the Greater Cincinnati Mortgage Fraud Task Force has resulted in a seven-count indictment charging two Cincinnati area home builders, a former Huntington National Bank vice president, and a self-employed tax preparer and interior designer with participating in a mortgage fraud scheme to sell four high-end luxury properties to “straw buyers.” A straw buyer is someone who is listed as the owner of a house, but is not really the one buying the house.Read more

A federal grand jury has indicted Dema Daiga of College Park, Md. and Oluseun Oshosanya of Laurel, Md. 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 Dec. 2, 2009 and unsealed on Dec. 23, 2009 upon the arrests of the defendants. Read more

U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz sentenced Jamilah Al-Bari of District Heights, Md. to a year and a day in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, for mail fraud arising from the fraudulent purchase of properties in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia, announced United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein. Judge Motz also ordered Al-Bari to pay restitution of between $400,000 and $1 million, with the exact amount to be set at a later date.Read more

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has announced the filing of a five-count Indictment charging two attorneys, Dustin Dente and Brandon Lisi, with a scheme to defraud various lending institutions by using straw buyers to obtain over $3.9 million in home mortgage loans that they then stole for their personal use. Both defendants were previously charged in a criminal complaint and arrested on Oct. 15, 2009.

As alleged in the Indictment filed in Manhattan federal court and the previously filed criminal complaint:Read more

Preet Bhara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Joseph M. DeMarest Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Richard H.Read more

U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus has sentenced Jennifer McCall, age 48, the chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Money Store, of Fort Washington, Md., to 135 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in connection with a mortgage fraud scheme that falsely promised to help homeowners facing foreclosure keep their homes and repair their damaged credit, announced United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein.Read more