Chicago $29M Condo Conversion/Straw Buyer/Mortgage Fraud Scam Gets Broker Nine Years

The Chicago Sun Times reports:

• Mohammad "Mike" Taghie Kakvand, the ringleader in a mortgage scheme that resulted in abandoned, crime-ridden Chicago apartment buildings, was sentenced Tuesday to nine years in prison. Kakvand bought 33 apartment buildings in Rogers Park and on Chicago's South Side between 1997 and 2004, but didn't renovate them. Units were sold as rehabbed condos at inflated prices, using straw buyers who defaulted on $29 million in loans. The plot displaced renters, and left decaying buildings prone to squatters, drug dealers, fire and water damage.

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• "The damages caused not only to the lending institutions, but to the community, are immeasurable," said U.S. District Judge William Hibbler, who ordered Kakvand to pay $8.4 million in restitution.

For more, see Slumlord gets 9 yrs. ('I know many people were harmed,' Kakvand tells judge).

See also, Broker in mortgage scam gets 9 years.