Twin Cities Alleged Mortgage Fraud Ring Growing "Like A Fungus"

In Minnesota, the Pioneer Press reports:

• It all started in 2006 when a Plymouth man called police after finding a mortgage notice in his mailbox, addressed to him, for a house he'd never heard of. Three arrests later, investigators now are sifting through the paperwork on some 80 closings done at title companies in Shoreview and Burnsville in an alleged mortgage-fraud ring that they say just keeps growing. "Everywhere you turn, it's like a fungus," said Detective Cory Cardenas of the Bloomington police.

• The investigation originally centered on 53-year-old Larry D. Maxwell of Minneapolis, according to a search warrant affidavit filed last week in Ramsey County District Court. In November, Maxwell was arrested and charged in Hennepin County District Court with 10 counts, including racketeering, theft by swindle, identity theft and aggravated forgery related to real estate deals made in 2006. He was released after posting bail of $250,000 and a pretrial hearing is being scheduled. The new search warrant indicates the case has broadened, and describes a long list of records detectives wanted to collect from two title companies in Shoreview and Burnsville where two associates of Maxwell handled closings.

For more, see Mortgage-fraud probe grows (Arrests, search warrants related to millions in real estate deals).