MICHIGAN – A man was sentenced to 15 months in prison for defrauding five banks out of nearly $400,000 by providing false information on loan applications, officials said.
Wasseem Shamoun plead guilty in August to conspiracy to commit bank fraud.
The superseding indictment alleged that from around January 2006 to December 2008, Shamoun, of Northville, Michigan, and his six other co-defendants conspired to defraud financial lending institutions to obtain residential mortgage loans by providing fraudulent information on loan applications.
The defendants cooked up a scheme to purchase single-family homes for approximately $5,000 to $40,000 each, and then recruited straw buyers to submit fraudulent loan applications for home mortgages substantially above the original purchase price, officials said.
The loan applications falsified the straw buyers’ assets, income and down payment, among other things, according authorities.
Officials said the straw buyers were paid fees for their participation, which were sometimes falsely disguised as “landscaping” or “construction” fees.
The conspirators made a substantial profit and paid themselves commissions on the sales, officials said.
Every home purchased and sold as part of the scheme went into foreclosure. According to court documents, Shamoun’s role in the conspiracy was to sell properties to the straw buyers.
Authorities said Shamoun was directly responsible for a criminal loss of approximately $394,000.
In addition to the seven individuals indicted in the case, two others connected to the scheme have plead guilty.
One individual is a straw buyer of multiple properties who received substantial fees as part of the scheme. The other individual is a mortgage broker who assisted in the preparation of the false mortgage loan applications.
Both are awaiting sentencing in their cases and are presumed innocent until proven guilty.