Brooklyn, NY – 23 Indicted In Mortgage, Loan Scam

Brooklyn, NY – Twenty-three individuals have been indicted on charges of participating in an illegal scheme to defraud various banks and financial institutions.

The defendants include brokers and processors who worked at the mortgage brokerages AGA Capital NY, Inc. and Northside Capital NY, Inc. in Brooklyn, real estate appraisers and loan account executives.

The defendants typically purchased target properties in multiple locations including all five boroughs of New York City, New Jersey and Sullivan County, New York, with one or more mortgages and/or home equity loans amounting to 100% of the purchase price of the property, thus ensuring that the defendants did not have any money at risk in the fraudulent transactions.

The fraud also involved paying individuals who fit a certain financial profile to act as phony purchasers, or "straw buyers" of the target properties. The defendants then prepared and submitted false and misleading information concerning the straw buyer's current residence, employment, income, assets, and existing debt.

The eight-count Indictment charges defendants ALEKSANDER LIPKIN, IGOR MISHELEVICH, ALEX GORVITS, MARINA DUBIN, IGOR BUZAKHER, JOSEPH PAPERNY, DANIEL MIKHLIN, JOHN GELIN, FRANSWA LIGON, FUAD YAKUBOV, RICARDO ACOSTA, ERIC CALLAHAN, DOUGLAS ELLISON, OLEG ANOKHIN, DAVID NEUSTEIN, TOMER SINAI, NATHANIEL KESSMAN, CARL CARR, JOHN CIAFOLO, LUCIANNE MORELLO, FAINA PETROVSKAYA, MARIYA BADYUK, and MARINA KLOTSMAN, with conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, and several of the defendants with bank and wire fraud in connection with the procurement of seven specific mortgage and home equity loans.