Being denied a mortgage license didn’t stop a mother and her son, who claim to be descendants of Turkish royalty, from operating several Connecticut mortgage companies with allegedly millions of dollars in cash flow.
Ayfer “Jackie” Yalincak, 50, and her son, Hakan “Hagen” Yalincak, 21, have been indicted in U.S. District Court in Connecticut on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The pair is accused of bilking investors out of $7.4 million with promises the money would be put in a hedge fund.
But in a statement U.S. Attorney Kevin O’Connor said the fund did not exist.
“This mother and son team are alleged to have defrauded several sophisticated investors out of a substantial sum of money,” O’Connor said.
Hakan Yalincak has also been charged with bank fraud.
Court documents indicate that the Yalincaks operated at least four mortgage companies in the Connecticut towns of Greenwich and New Canaan: Classic R&C Mortgage, Greenwich Global Trust and Mortgage; SACS Global Trust and Mortgage; and CIC Capital Mortgage.
It is not clear if the companies were legitimate or merely fronts for the investment scam. Neither the mother nor son, both in custody of authorities, could be reached to comment.
According to the Connecticut Department of Banking, Hakan Yalincak applied in October for state licenses to operate as mortgage broker and lender.
In a letter to Yalincak dated June 3 Banking Commissioner John P. Burke indicated he denied the licenses because of Yalincak’s lack of experience in mortgage lending.
To be licensed under Connecticut law a mortgage lender must have at least three years in the mortgage lending business within the past five years.
“I have determined that Hakan Yalincak…lacks the experience required by (state) statutes,” Burke wrote in the letter, which is posted on the banking department’s Web site.
Mary Ann Morrison, president and CEO of the Greenwich Chamber of Commerce, confirmed in an e-mail to MortgageDaily.com that R&C Mortgage, which she said was operated by Jackie Yalincak, did join the organization in October of 2002. But the business dropped out of the chamber in February of 2004, Morrison said.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is looking into complaints that Yalincaks mortgage businesses were collecting fees but not producing loans.
And a federal lawsuit filed in Connecticut includes claims that money invested in Yalincak’s hedge fund was flowing into the family’s mortgage businesses.
Two investors who put more than $2 million in the fund say in the lawsuit that bank records indicate that in the fall of 2004 nearly $3 million was transferred from the hedge fund to Greenwich Global Trust & Mortgage and another company controlled by the Yalincaks, Greenwich Special Financing LLC.
The investors are seeking $1.8 million and accuse the Yalincaks of “deceptive practices, common schemes and artifices and false and misleading statements.”
Parts of this story are downright bazaar.
Hakan Yalincak was arrested in early May on one count of federal bank fraud after he attempted to deposit $43 million in bad checks at banks in Connecticut and Switzerland.
The family, who are Turkish immigrants, claimed to be wealthy descendants of Turkish royalty who pledged $21 million in donations to New York University, where Hakan Yalincak was enrolled.
