Fugitive Gets 10 Years for Role in Scheme to Launder Mortgage Fraud Proceeds

Allison Tussey —  August 26, 2014 — Leave a comment

Hong Jae Kim, aka Randy Kim, 45, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jane J. Boyle to 10 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $1,795,125 in restitution for his nearly two-year role in a scheme to launder mortgage fraud proceeds.

A felony information was filed in February 2013 charging Kim with one count of conspiracy to engage in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity. He agreed to plead guilty to the offense, but failed to appear at an arraignment set for the following month. The Court issued a bench warrant, and special agents with IRS Criminal Investigation arrested Kim a few months later in California. He returned to the Northern District of Texas, where he entered his guilty plea in July 2013.

According to documents filed in the case, Kim, along with others, including David Joe Cano, Arlington, Texas, a mortgage loan officer, conspired to engage in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity. Cano was a mortgage loan officer at 1st Capital Investment, Richardson, Texas. He pleaded guilty to the same offense and was sentenced in November 2013 to 87 months in federal prison and ordered to pay nearly $1.8 million in restitution.

From January 2006 to November 2007, Kim, Cano, along with other co-conspirators, operated a scheme to obtain fraudulent loans from Bank of America and IndyMac Bank, as well as GreenPoint Mortgage Funding, Inc. and WMC Mortgage Corporation, both located in California, and Everett Financial Inc. dba Supreme Lending and America Homekey, Inc., both in Dallas. Kim, Cano and their co-conspirators then laundered the money from those loans back to themselves using shell corporations such as Comex International Korea Corporation, Eagle’s Marc Enterprises, Inc. and Sunko Construction.

To defraud the banks and mortgage lenders, Kim, Cano and their co-conspirators selected newly constructed or distressed properties whose value could be inflated without raising lenders’ suspicions.

Kim, Cano and others then recruited individuals with good credit scores to act as loan applicants for the purchase of the properties and paid them to apply for loans using applications that falsely inflated the applicant’s income and assets. The applicants were deceitfully promised that the properties would be leased until they were sold at a profit and that the applicants would receive regular payments from the rental income that would be sufficient to repay their loans until the properties sold. In reality, the applicants were left with unpaid loans that ruined their credit scores.

As charged in the Information, the scheme focused on seven properties located at: St. George Place, DeSoto, Texas; Golden Pond Drive, Cedar Hill, Texas; Summerfield Court, Fairview, Texas; Tangleglen Drive, Dallas; Roma Court, Allen, Texas; Avondale Drive, Murphy, Texas; and Stephenville Drive, Frisco, Texas.

U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas, announced the sentence.

IRS Criminal Investigation investigated the case, with assistance from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations. Assistant U.S.

Attorney Walt M. Junker prosecuted.

Allison Tussey

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