A Colorado mortgage broker and three of his loan officers have been indicted in an alleged large scale mortgage fraud scheme that involves more than $20 million in loans and 117 homes.
The four have been charged with using fraud to obtain financing for home buyers that should not have qualified for loans because they lacked sufficient income or were not U.S. citizens, according to a statement by Jefferson County District Attorney Scott Storey.
The loan officers charged are Perla Alvarado, 39, Lucinda Loma, 35, and Ludibeth Salazar, 26. All three worked for mortgage broker Jose Alfredo Ramirez, 28, who was also charged.
Ramirez allegedly solicited the loans while the other three handled obtaining the financing, Storey said.
Ramirez ran his operation out of a Lakewood, Colo., office.
“The indictment alleges that it was the regular practice of Ramirez to solicit potential homebuyers who, because of their citizenship or financial circumstances, were not qualified for FHA loans,” Storey said in the statement.
“Alvarado, Loma and Salazar, as part of the enterprise, are accused of having prepared or obtained false documents showing that the buyers were legally in the United States and financially qualified for home loans,” he said.
All of the suspects were freed on bonds ranging from $5,000 to $50,000.
Alvarado was named in an earlier indictment when he and two others were charged with forging documents to obtain $6.5 million of the loans.
The others are Ricardo Medina, a realtor, and Nancy Rios, a mortgage loan officer.
“According to the indictment, the defendants were able to obtain loans for the unqualified buyers by creating false documents concerning the homebuyer’s identity, employment and credit history, and then submitting these false documents to legitimate mortgage lenders,” Storey said in an earlier statement. “Transactions in the initial indictment involved loans for 33 homes, totaling 6.5 million dollars.”
Those indictments were handed down in July.
The investigation that led to the indictments was actually conducted by the Gaming Unit of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which began its investigation after receiving complaints from a Colorado casino that unknown persons had forged documents which stated that the homebuyers were employed by the casino.
