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12 arrested in California for alleged mortgage ‘conspiracy ring’.
12 Arrested in California for Alleged Mortgage
After years of series of intense investigations by the Los Angeles Police Department alongside the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Inspector General Police Office, the Office of the Attorney General of California arrested 12 individuals on 133 felony count charges for alleged mortgage ‘conspiracy ring.’
The so-called individuals allegedly ran mortgage scams from 2014 - 2020 across Southern California, cutting across Counties like Los Angeles, Riverside, Ventura, and totaling $15 million. The defendants were indicted of conspiracy relating to aggravated white-collar crime, identity theft, filing false documents, grand theft, and money laundering.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, the indictment was handed up on the 26th of April, 2021, by the grand jury, accusing the defendants of operating a mortgage scheme that resulted in the loss of a considerable amount of money. Companies involved in the conspiracy were Renew Funding and Yrgene Energy Fund - companies that fund licensed contractors for energy. The defendants collectively exploited these companies by using false identities to get mortgage loans from traditional banks and hard money lenders.
These identities belonged to actual individuals, some of whom were already serving sentences, had one form of disability, or were deceased. The defendants took hold of these identities and integrated their identities with them, creating synthetic identities. In addition to that, they manipulated tax documents, bank statements and changed payroll statements to suit their high net worth status. They created email accounts, shell companies, forged signatures, financial documents, information of the identities on loan applications, and used the information to apply for millions of dollars of loans from mortgage lenders that accumulated to approximately $15 million.
Defendants filed false bankruptcies on multiple occasions and created false court papers to avoid being exposed and continue with their fraudulent activities.
Attorney General of California Rob Bonta said in a statement that the allegations leveled against the defendants charged a pattern of disregard for the constitution and the determination to steal the identities of the dead to further their scam. He further said that the Attorney General’s Office would stop at nothing to hold these defendants accountable for their alleged actions.
NAMES OF THE DEFENDANTS IN THE CONSPIRACY RING
Those indicted by the Attorney General of California are; Richard Ayvazyan, Tamara Dadyan, Artur Ayvazyan, Andranik Petrosyan, Artashes Martirosyan, Grigor Tatoian, Lilit Malyan, Arshak Bartoumian, Lubia Carrillo, Estephanie Reynosa, Vanessa Bell, and Rosa Zarate. So far, eleven of the defendants have pleaded not guilty, with only Lilit Malyan due to be arraigned before the court.
After the arrests were made, the Attorney General appraised the efforts and tenacity of the agencies involved in making the arrests and putting an end to a complex six-year mortgage scam that resulted in the loss of almost $15 million.
References
https://www.lapdonline.org/home/news_view/67553 https://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/news/12-arrested-in-alleged-californiamortgage-fraud-identity-theft-scam https://www.dailynews.com/2021/05/06/12-indicted-in-alleged-southerncalifornia-green-loan-and-mortgage-fraud-scheme/amp/ https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-announcesarrests-and-arraignment-15-million-mortgage https://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/enforcement/?type=state-enforcement-agencies
