Plainsman1963

Third guilty in grow op home mortgage fraud
12-27-06 | Surreyleader.Com | Dan Ferguson

Real estate agent Linh Phu Ngo has become the third person to plead guilty to involvement in a scam that wrote 900 bogus mortgages worth more than $2 million, many of them on Surrey properties.

Ngo’s sentencing is scheduled to begin March 27 in Surrey Provincial Court.

Her father, Hoang Ngoc Ngo, also a real estate broker, pleaded guilty to three fraud-related charges in June.

His sentencing hearing will resume in February.

Another person, Surrey resident Danh Van Nguyen, a mortgage broker, was sentenced to 12 months in jail in September after he pleaded guilty to six counts of using forged documents to arrange fraudulent mortgages in a scheme authorities said was linked to the illicit marijuana trade.

The plot generated $2 million in profits, according to the Financial Institutions Commission (FICOM), the agency that regulates B.C. mortgage brokers and real estate agents.

Nguyen operated Vancouver-based Express Mortgages with the Ngos.

The three originally faced a total of 91 charges related to an elaborate scheme that used forged letters of employment, and fake T-4 slips and banking records to obtain mortgages on a number of houses.

Investigators said a review of mortgages arranged by Nguyen showed as many as 100 were used to buy homes to conceal indoor grow-ops.

In many cases, the people listed as the registered owners of the homes did not live there and told FICOM the purchase loans had been arranged without their knowledge.

The guilty pleas came after a hearing by the provincial Registrar of Mortgage Brokers.

The fraud was discovered in January of 2003 when the Bank of Montreal contacted FICOM about “numerous irregularities” involving Nguyen loans, including undisclosed second mortgages.

Then HSBC came forward with identical concerns.

In all, 162 mortgages were called in.

All were paid in full, even though the owners did not appear to earn the amount of money Nguyen had reported.

The registrar’s written judgment describes one woman as “deliberately evasive” about the source of her $130,000 down payment and says she maintained she had no idea Nguyen had manufactured a false employment letter claiming she made $45,000 when her actual income was $24,000.