Va. Businessman Pleads Guilty to $33M Mortgage Fraud
washingtonpost.com | 11/13/08 | $33 million | suspect: Vijay K. Taneja | victim: multiple banks
Vijay K. Taneja, 47, admitted that he defrauded banks of at least $33 million through schemes in which he created bogus mortgage loans and obtained funds for the same loans from multiple banks. Prosecutors said the case is the largest in Virginia in at least 20 years.
bTaneja is well known in the local Indian American community, and he invested millions of his proceeds in Indian films and musical acts, officials said.
As Taneja, of Fairfax City, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, prosecutors indicated that the fraud might be larger than what they charged. "He has millions of dollars unaccounted for," Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Learned told Judge Claude M. Hilton. "There's so much money, and it's difficult to figure out where it all went."
Citing Taneja's ties to India and a possible seven-year prison sentence, Learned urged the judge to order Taneja to be electronically monitored to ensure he doesn't flee before his Jan. 30 sentencing. "We can't be unmindful of the crisis we're facing in mortgage frauds," he said.
But after defense lawyers emphasized that Taneja had cooperated with the government, Hilton ordered him released on a personal recognizance bond.
Experts in mortgage fraud said the amount of loss to the banks makes this case one of the nation's largest mortgage fraud prosecutions. Investigators are continuing to examine an upsurge in fraud triggered by the slumping housing market, and the FBI has ramped up investigations locally through a mortgage fraud task force begun late last year in its Washington field office.