A Powell woman who was called the "queen" of mortgage fraud pleaded guilty on Tuesday and was sentenced to prison. Gihan "Gigi" Zalat faces deportation upon completion of her sentence, according to the Delaware County prosecutor's office. Zalat, 41, pleaded guilty to eight felony charges, including three counts engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity and five counts of money laundering. On Monday, alleged ring member Scott McCann, 46, of Upper Arlington, pleaded guilty to charges of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity and money laundering.

via wbns10tv.com

An Upper Arlington man accused of involvement in a Central Ohio mortgage fraud ring has pleaded guilty to eight felony counts and is set to testify against the woman investigators have called the ringleader. Delaware County Prosecutor Dave Yost’s office said Scott McCann, 45, pleaded guilty to three counts of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity and five counts of money laundering. He was indicted in February 2008 along with Gihan Zalat, 41, for an alleged mortgage flipping scheme that involved several area properties.

via bizjournals.com

U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein announced an ambitious effort Friday to crack down on mortgage fraud, combining people and information from federal, state and local agencies to share information and prosecute the network of mortgage industry firms preying upon unwitting homeowners. The newly formed Maryland Mortgage Fraud Task Force will pool its resources to go after fraud crimes that cross over city, county and state lines, Rosenstein said. The agencies will focus not just on fraudulent mortgage consultants but also the network.

via bizjournals.com

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged four New Yorkers with conspiring to obtain more than $10 million in fraudulent home mortgage loans in a plan that relied on former prisoners living in a halfway house and residents of a public housing project to pose as home buyers. Most of the mortgages, which were subprime loans provided to borrowers considered high credit risks, are now in default or in foreclosure, according to a federal indictment unsealed on Wednesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

via nytimes.com

Gohar J. Mirza, 29, of Annandale was sentenced on Dec. 19 to 63 months in prison, followed by a term of three years supervised release, and ordered to pay more than $3 million in restitution. Mirza pleaded guilty on Sept. 23, 2008 to conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud in connection with a mortgage fraud scheme. According to court documents, Mirza was an owner and operator of E-Star Lending, Inc., a mortgage brokerage company located in Burke and Annandale.

via fairfaxtimes.com

Investigations into the collapse of financial titans such as Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual have attracted most of the attention in the ongoing unraveling of the nation's mortgage-backed security mess. Lost in the headlines are prosecutions proceeding quietly on the local level against smaller players. In dozens of jurisdictions around the country, federal prosecutors are charging hundreds of people with originating the bad loans that helped derail the world's financial markets.

via app.com

Both mortgage fraud and late payments are rising substantially, according to separate reports this week. The percentage of people who are two months behind on mortgage payments shot up in the third quarter from the same period last year, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion LLC. Meanwhile, industry data released Tuesday shows that reported incidents of mortgage fraud grew by 45 percent in the second quarter compared with the year-ago period.

via sfgate.com

Three people, including a San Bernardino resident, have been arrested for defrauding Southern California homeowners of more than $700,000 by falsely promising to save their homes from foreclosure by negotiating modifications of their mortgages, California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. reported Tuesday. California Department of Justice special agents arrested Rosa Conrado of San Bernardino, Saul Amador of West Covina and Jesus Flores of Baldwin Park, who were allegedly part of the fraud ring.

via pe.com

A Stockton man has been sentenced to 15 months in federal prison for his part in a mortgage fraud scheme during the height of the housing boom. Prosecutors say 45-year-old Jose Serrano recruited fake buyers for homes in the Stockton area between 2003 and 2005. He pleaded guilty to helping 37-year-old Iftikhar Ahmad of Stockton sell 10 homes to fraudulently obtain more than $1.5 million in loans.

via kcbs.com

A Stockton man has been sentenced to 15 months in federal prison for his part in a mortgage fraud scheme during the height of the housing boom. Prosecutors say 45-year-old Jose Serrano recruited fake buyers for homes in the Stockton area between 2003 and 2005. He pleaded guilty to helping 37-year-old Iftikhar Ahmad of Stockton sell 10 homes to fraudulently obtain more than $1.5 million in loans. Two mortgage brokers and two former employees of Long Beach Mortgage.

via mercurynews.com

The Land Registry has revealed that it has paid out almost £4 million in compensation to defrauded homeowners and mortgage lenders this year, twice the amount it paid out the year before for mortgage fraud.
It is estimated that the UK’s banks and building societies cold be carrying up to £17bn worth of fraudulent mortgages on their books.

via yourmortgage.co.uk

Student accommodation provider Unite Group has raised 58 million pounds ($102.5 million) of equity in the third closing for its UNITE Student Accommodation Fund, the company said yesterday. The latest fundraising brings the total third party equity commitments in the fund to 428 million pounds, bucking a general slide in sentiment towards UK real estate funds and underlining the recession-proof appeal of student accommodation investment.

via turkishdailynews.com.tr

House Appropriations Committee and its Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice and Commerce, and Related Agencies, which oversees discretionary spending of the Justice Department, FBI and other agencies, issues the following statement: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation and its director, Robert Mueller, should be commended for stepping up its investigation of mortgage fraud and possible criminal activities related to the growing national financial crisis.

via marketwatch.com

A northern Virginia man has pleaded guilty to helping to run a mortgage fraud scheme that defrauded lenders out of more than $2.5 million. Twenty-nine-year-old Gohar Mirza, of Annandale, said in court documents that he and several coconspirators sold properties in Annandale, Woodbridge and elsewhere to straw buyers, who used fraudulent loan documents to obtain financing.

via wusa9.com

Here's one more reason the housing market is in a rut: Dozens of homes sitting empty and facing foreclosure in Central Florida because they were part of an elaborate mortgage fraud scheme. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum says his office has filed suit against 10 companies and 15 individuals in a multi-million dollar mortgage fraud scheme.

via indiaprwire.com