Federal agents have arrested three Southern California men for allegedly running a scam involving short sales that caused more than $10 million in losses, authorities said Friday.
Atiqullah Nabizada, 29, of Coto de Caza, and Kenneth Moore, 49, of Tustin, were arrested Thursday at their homes after a grand jury returned two indictments charging them and a third defendant - 32-year-old Ahmed Tariq Asghari, of Sherman Oaks - with fraud violations and identity theft in connection with a variety of schemes using real or fake short sale real estate transactions and home loans.
The violations involved a variety of fraudulent short sale real estate and home loan scams that resulted in earnings for the trio of more than $10 million and major losses for homeowners, lenders and real estate investors.
Authorities said that in some cases the accused claimed to have insiders working at a bank who, in exchange for cash, would authorize the short sale of a home at a price far lower than its fair market value. This allowed the defendants to "flip" the house for a significant profit.
According to the indictment, the three men sometimes used short-sale approval letters that were fabricated. Consequently, authorities said, home buyers and investors purchased homes to which they thought they had clear titles but were actually devalued and subject to hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of liens.
A short sale is one where the sale of a property falls short of the total owed by the current owner.
uring their searches, federal officials seized $548,937 in cash, luxury vehicles such as two Bentleys and a Mercedes-Benz, and several jewels. About $1.7 million in bank accounts have also been seized.
