RING ACTED A-LOAN TO ROB $200M (Ruski predators $200M subprime mtge fraud--they steal, we pay)

NY POST ^ | 10/4/08 | BRUCE GOLDING

[Liz]

.....a brazen family of fraudsters took advantage of sloppy subprime mortgage lenders to pull off a mindblowing scheme reeling in more than $200M - a devastating hit that contributed to the nation's financial crisis. Garri Zhigun was part of a Russian fraud ring using false documents, stolen ID's and "straw" buyers for over 1,000 subprime mortgages 2004-06. The 27-member gang worked out of a Brooklyn mortgage brokerage owned by Zhigun's mother........targets included fallen lenders Washington Mutual Bank, conned out of $842,500, Countrywide taken for $396,000.......and preyed on other banks and mortgage companies. Zhigun and accomplice Aleksander "Shorty" Lipkin bought condos for $8M and transferred ownership to Zhigun's mother, Galina Zhigun, owner of AGA Capital mortgage brokerage, and his wife, Maryann "Marina" Furman, office manager. Garri Zhigun lost his stockbroker's license in 2002 over fraud allegations. Mother Galina Zhigun, a civil engineer from Russia, pleaded guilty to bank fraud......she got $870,000 in mortgages from Flagstar Bank. Wife Furman pleaded guilty to wire fraud for faxing a phony loan application. She got $750,000 from New Century Mortgage Corp. records show.

[Liz]

These predator "immigrants" get on the US gravy train as soon as they get off the boat and learn to say say "gimmee" in English. US taxpayers provides all kinds of federal, state and city handouts and job set-asides (jobs taken from born Americans)......soon as these illegals say the magic words: "political asylum." Pretending to be "victims" is a lucrative con game. The FBI has fingered the Russian mob in all kinds of frauds---billion-dollar staged auto accidents, billion-dollar Medicare/Aid fraud, billion-dollar insurance and securities fraud, ID theft, sex crimes, child porn......you name it (read below).

Golly, now that I've outed the scoundrels, they'll have to kill me (sniffle). (Yawn) I'm so scared (snore-zzzzz). No problem, fellow posters, I notified the US DOJ, FBI, the CIA, Interpol, Scotland Yard, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Carbinieri, and Mossad. And I named names.

[A Balrog of Morgoth]

The Russains were really big in the gasoline tax scam too.

[Liz]

REFERENCE——EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THE TRI-STATE JOINT SOVIET-EMIGRE ORGANIZED CRIME PROJECT. RUSSIAN-EMIGRE CRIME IN THE TRI-STATE AREA.

Gangsters from the former Soviet Union have established a strong and abiding presence in the New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania region, engaging in a wide array of crimes that range from sophisticated financial frauds to narcotics trafficking to murder. Evidence also shows that members of disparate Russian-emigre crime groups here have the potential to develop into one of the most formidable organized crime challenges to law enforcement since the advent of La Cosa Nostra.

These are among the key findings of the Tri-State JointSoviet-Emigre Organized Crime Project, a cooperative research andinvestigative effort launched four years ago by four agencies in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania - the New York Organized Crime Task Force, the New York State Commission of Investigation,the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation and the Pennsylvania Crime Commission. Investigative agents and staff from these agencies conducted the project in conjunction with criminal justice experts from Rutgers University.

The Project’s report presents the first comprehensive publicassessment of the threat posed to this region by criminal elements emanating from within the former Soviet Union. The report catalogues the history and growth of Russian-emigre crime networks, from their core base in the Brighton Beachsection of Brooklyn to their current reach well beyond the New York metropolitan area into the counties of central New Jersey and the suburbs of Philadelphia. One of the most troubling aspects is evidence of links between individuals here and criminal elements in the former Soviet Union, a phenomenon that lends a disturbing and complex international dimension to this emerging domestic law enforcement problem.The range of criminal and illicit activities linked to these groups is impressive.

The Project report details Russian-emigre involvement in a variety of highly sophisticated frauds and confidence schemes, financial crimes, including money laundering, counterfeiting and securities fraud, narcotics trafficking and an assortment of vice crimes.Russian-emigre criminals are no strangers to violence either.

THE NATURE OF RUSSIAN-EMIGRE CRIME

Crimes of Deception

Motor Fuel Tax Fraud

Insurance and Entitlement Fraud

Confidence Schemes

Counterfeiting

Violent Crimes

Homicide/Attempted Homicide

Extortion and Kidnapping

Drug Trafficking

Money Laundering

Vice Crimes (Regpay, a Florida credit card processing company operated by Byelorussians, was nailed for processing online child porn payments; Minx, Belarus, once a constituent republic of the Soviet Union (independent since 1991) is the origin of many of these predators on US soil.

—SNIP—

PDF LONG READ http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:Ahm0dOHcKHEJ:www.state.nj.us/sci/pdf/russian.pdf

[org.whodat]

No one in government cares.

[pnh102]

And perhaps if these banks had done a bit more due diligence before lending money to these crooks, then most of this fraud could have been prevented. Of course, now that the Wall Street Welfare Queen Act of 2008 is law, there is once again no incentive for banks to lend in a responsible manner.

[Liz]

Cable-TV’s History Channel did an excellent expose of the horrors of Russian organized crime. The expose asserted that before they land here, Russian criminals stop off in Israel to get all the available freebies (some of the Russian rascals pretend to be Jewish to fraudulently pocket Israeli benefits).

They come to the US under liberal political asylum laws. They plead “religious persecution” and immediately get on the US gravy train sucking up US tax dollars like it was going out of style. One TV report chronicled the lifestyle of an unemployed 30’ish Russian immigrant-—a trained engineer——picking up US welfare checks while his wife was lolling around getting her hair and nails done courtesy of US taxpayers.

Russian emigres arriving in the US are treated like royalty, with tax-subsidized government grants, tax-subsidized housing, and job set-asides waiting for them......jobs taken from taxpaying born-Americans.

Russian TV runs a nightly show outlining the US giveaway programs, how to fill out the forms etc, which US offices to apply to, etc. The sense of entitlement is outrageous. Preying off working class Americans must end.

[1rudeboy]

Is great country!

[HarleyD]

Not to worry. The Bush Administration, Paulson and our Congress have promised that we’ll make money off the bail-out. I can “feel” the dollars flowing in even now.

[decimon]

The Soviet underground was an excellent criminal training ground for getting around any system.

[Liz]

TEXAS HOLD 'EM BY $7M 'CON MAN'
NY POST By LAURA ITALIANO
August 17, 2007

EXCERPT A 24-year-old NY Russian con man is accused of an international plot to swipe $7M out of the home-equity credit account of a GWB backer. ID-theft suspect Igor Klopov targeted Texas billionaire Charles Wyly Jr. (Wyly donated $2M to Bush).

..... the Russian apparently targeted Wyly b/c in Texas property-deed info is online.

What he couldn't get online, Klopov would forge, sometimes with the help of hired American recruits and even private investigators........He assembled a complete dossier, including driver's license, birth certificate, utility bills, blank checks and brokerage statements, prosecutors said.

He also called the billionaire's bank, posing as Wyly, allegedly asking that a new home-equity line checkbook be sent to the home of an accomplice, who then tried to use the checkbook to write a $7 million check to a Westchester gold dealer.

SOURCE http://www.nypost.com/seven/08172007/news/regionalnews/texas_hold_em_by_7m_con_man_regionalnews_laura_italiano.htm

[pnh102]

They come to the US under liberal political asylum laws.

Do they get props for coming here legally? :)

[KCengineer]

We were a victim of mortgage fraud in 2004.

Wife’s identity was stolen and used to buy a $500,000 in Houston suburb (Katy)

I spent 60 days and many hours figuring out the scam

Called local Texas authorities - no help

Called Georgia (where I live) - no help

Called the FBI - no help

Called Texas AG office - no help

Called the builder and real estate agents who sold the property - F-— Y— (they told me)

Called the mortgage broker - FRAUD ring leader

Called the bank - trying to foreclose on ME

Called the Secret Service (BING0) - took my case, I gave them the case file I developed, they offered me a job and then they proceeded to expose and bust the LARGEST mortgage fraud scheme ever in Houston

GUESS who were the culprits - NIGERIANs (ring leader), JAMAICANS (muscle and faudulent home flippers) and INDIANS (fraudulent co-signers and flippers)

TRUE STORY

[Liz]

Not to worry. The Bush Administration, Paulson and our Congress have promised that we’ll make money off the bail-out. I can “feel” the dollars flowing in even now.

Yeah---that feels so good. Here's how we're gonna make money (/sarc) .

BOFA SAYS FED MAY GO 'BEAR'---Bloomberg----The US Federal Reserve may lose as much as $6 billion on a portfolio of mortgage-backed assets it took over from Bear Stearns Cos., according to Bank of America Corp. analysts. The Fed will announce on Oct. 23 its quarterly estimate of the fair value of Maiden Lane LLC's $30 billion of holdings that JPMorgan Chase considered too risky when it acquired Bear Stearns in March, Bank of America analysts Jeffrey Rosenberg and Hans Mikkelsen wrote in a client note. The central bank valued the assets at $29 billion as of June 30, according to the report. "With the worsening in mortgage markets since last quarter, we estimate a range of $2 billion to $6 billion of unrealized losses," the New York-based analysts wrote. About half the portfolio is backed by commercial mortgages and half by residential loans.

SOURCE http://www.nypost.com/seven/10032008/business/bofa_says_fed_may_go_bear_131960.htm

[Liz]

....perhaps if these banks had done a bit more due diligence before lending money to these crooks, then most of this fraud could have been prevented.......

These oily Russian crooks are very shrewd----they probably posed as "disadvantaged minorities" and used other "victimization" schemes----as the US lending system was being beaten down by liberal do-gooders.

[nkycincinnatikid]

thank you

[denydenydeny]

Joe Scarborough will call this article another example of “blaming poor people.”

[TET1968]

Any way to read more about the case?
I want to know every detail, especially interested in
the responses to your request for help.

[shadowgovernment]

Russians, Nigerians, India, south America and Mexico..
Gotta admire it in a way..they come here and rip off our government and banks for $$$$

While I sit here paying my taxes and bills as dumb as a rock all the while looking at self dealing corruption from wall street to Washington where business and politicians blatantly steal billions $$$ in plain sight.

Perhaps these criminal immigrants have realized corruption is now the American way.. they have the brains and guts to join in on the party.

[org.whodat]

Called the builder and real estate agents who sold the property - F-— Y— (they told me)

These people and their complete like of ethics is one one the main unaddressed problems causing the bailout.

[KCengineer]

Local authorities were swamped by fraud cases and did not have the talent or resources to take the case. They also had a no harm no foul mentality.

FBI was WORTHLESS. Never called me back and supposedly were swamped by 9-11.

The guy that lead the fraud ring managed to become a prominent face in the Texas Mortgage Assn. in order to increase his profle and afford himself legitmacy.

My big break us utilizing the state of Texas Department of Public Safety website. For $10 you can enter names and pull police records on people. Most states don’t allow this.

Once I got these scumbags police records I started faxing and e-mailing them to real estate agents, builders and credit resellers that were working with these crooks. Amazingly these crooks managed to get an account with a Credit Report reseller in Florida. The reseller emphatically told me that this guy was legit and they checked him out. Once I faxed them his poilce record they got real scared and quiet.

Keep in mind folks, there are three main credit bureaus, but 100’s of credit resellers. The credit resellers are legit but they are more susceptible to being conned by the bad guys.

I am an amateur expert at busting fraud. Unfortunately, there are not enough me’s, too many of them and law enforcement that is overwhelmed.

The Secret Service was great to deal with. They busted the ring and had them tried. The ring leader was given bond (f-—ing judge) and fled to Nigeria where he is right now. His wife got five years and others got slapped too.

This is a small part of the story.

Interestingly my county investigator here in Georgia said he 12 fraud cases in 2002 and 150 in 2003.

Our government is BROKE!!!!