Atlanta Prosecutors Charge 12 In Alleged Straw Buyer Scam Using Phony Appraisals

In Atlanta, Georgia, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports:

• Local authorities said Monday they charged 12 men with an elaborate mortgage fraud scheme in Atlanta’s West End neighborhood and seized more than $200,000 of assets. In indictments filed last week, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard Jr. accused the men of buying and selling nine homes using false appraisals that were more than double the homes’ actual value. Seven of the houses were in the 30310 zip code in the West End, where 26 homes were put up for foreclosure auction in late June.

• The homes are just a handful of ones in the 30310 zip code [...] that sit vacant and neglected largely as a result of the fraud scheme or fallout from the nation’s credit crisis. Many have been bought and then foreclosed upon more than once, making them prime targets for mortgage fraud, said Detective Robert McFall, an investigator with the Atlanta Police Department’s major fraud unit. McFall said his work is not finished: there are “thousands” of homes in the Atlanta area that are tied to mortgage fraud.

For more, see 12 indicted in Atlanta mortgage fraud scheme.