A pair of Fiji nationals residing in California were sentenced for leading a multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud scheme.
According to court records, Jyoteshna Karan and Praveen Singh Karan conspired to make straw purchases and short sales of approximately 15 homes from Modesto to Sacramento between 2006 and 2015. After Karan and Singh acquired the homes, they allowed them to go into foreclosure and arranged for short sales with the lenders. They then quickly resold the homes to other people at market rates, pocketing significant profits. As a result, they caused the lenders to suffer over $3 million in losses.
Karan and Singh used unwitting participants, fabricated documents, and shell companies to carry out their fraud. In their schemes, they used Singh’s mother as a straw purchaser, fabricated documents to make it appear as though the straw purchasers worked for their shell companies making six figure salaries, and fabricated documents to make it appear as though the transactions were arm’s length.
Karan was sentenced to three years and four months in prison and Singh received a prison sentence of two years. The case against them was the result of a joint investigation by the FBI, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s Office of the Inspector General, and the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office.
The punishment does not fit the crime. How about the money they made in 9 years of fraud? Have they seized everything they own? 5 bureaus, the courts and now the prisons are dishing out money to find and “penalize” them and they only get a couple of years in prison?? They will find a new scheme when out, seems like a small price to pay for the good life they’ve lived for 9 years.