Tip of the iceberg

From the Central Valley Business Times - Straw buyer sentenced in mortgage fraud case:

Manpreet Singh, 25, of Stockton has been sentenced to six months of home detention and five years’ probation for mail fraud for her part in a mortgage fraud scheme, according to Acting U.S. Attorney Lawrence Brown.

She has also been ordered to pay $1,000 a month in restitution to the victim of her mortgage fraud scam, as well as paying $163,500 in restitution.

Ms. Singh pleaded guilty on March 31, 2008.

Ms. Singh purchased two homes as a “straw buyer” for Ifthikar Ahmad, a co-defendant in the case, federal prosecutors say.

Straw buyers are loan applicants who buy homes on behalf of others with no intention of actually occupying the property they are purchasing. In exchange for the use of their name and credit information, straw buyers are often compensated.

In this case, Ms. Singh received $15,000 from Mr. Ahmad for her role in signing falsified loan documents, court documents show.

In the first transaction, Ms. Singh stated that she earned more than $5,500 per month and in the second, she stated that she earned $8,500. In truth, Ms. Singh worked at Alfalfa’s Pizza in Stockton and made approximately $8 an hour.

As a result of her fraudulent transactions, the homes purchased with Ms. Singh as the straw buyer were foreclosed on, causing a loss to the lender of $163,500, prosecutors say.

How crafty of Singh and Ahmad to pull the wool over the eyes of the bank with such a well-honed scheme of lying about their income. And, of course, the banks did nothing to verify that what they were told was true.

Multiply this by a million and the economy of Iceland implodes.

But it's not like public virtue matters.