Man Gets 2 Years In Mortgage Fraud Scheme
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A 50 year-old Fridley man was sentenced to two years in prison in Minneapolis Federal Court on Tuesday for defrauding eight mortgage lenders out of $1.9 million.
Taleb Mohamed Wazwaz was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mortgage fraud through the use of interstate wires on April 19, 2010 and pleaded guilty on May 4, 2010.
In the plea agreement, Wazwaz admitted conspiring with others between May of 2005 and March of 2006 to defraud mortgage lenders by purchasing or causing others to purchase 12 Minneapolis properties at inflated prices and keeping much of the borrowed money for his own benefit or the benefit of others involved in the scam.
Wazwaz purchased eight properties himself entirely with borrowed funds. In each situation, Wazwaz borrowed more money than the property's true asking price, and in some instances, he caused the sellers to sign purchase agreement documents that obligated them to pay him the differences between the amounts borrowed and the properties' true asking prices. Those documents were never disclosed to the lenders.
In three of those instances, Wazwaz induced the title companies to pay Iman Sun Properties, Inc., the difference between the amount borrowed and the property's true asking price.
