Saturday, August 8, 2015

Weird deed fraud case in Jamaica Estates

From the Daily News:

The strange saga began on April 29 when Anita Chan returned from work to her Jamaica Estates home and found the locks changed — and three strangers inside, according to the complaint.

When she questioned them, the trio told her they were working with the bank that held the mortgage and she would not be allowed inside until she signed some documents, the complaint states.

Chan, 60, then told the intruders her husband, Wah Chan, was the sole property owner and that he was in China.

So they had her call him — then emailed him documents to sign, including a deed transfer.

While Wah Chan signed some of the paperwork, he did not sign the deed transfer, according to the complaint.

The next day, the accused home invaders let the poor woman back inside and gave her 10 minutes to retrieve some of her belongings, Brown said.

Inside, Chan discovered that the house on Grand Central Parkway had been ransacked, he said.

It wasn’t until May 16 that her 73-year-old husband returned from China and arrived at the house with a locksmith of his own.

Not only were jewelry, knives and cash missing, so were documents verifying ownership of his home, Brown said.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the trio allegedly targeted the Chans.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's typical in Chinese culture to go after the parents when the child has done wrong. I live in the area and know the family. The parents are nice enough on the surface, but very oriental. It's telling that he has valuable knives. Their son runs with a bad crowd and has brought this gang warfare to the neighborhood.

Anonymous said...

Something smells fishy here... Why didn't the woman call the cops immediately to at least take a report? Did she not want them on scene for some reason?

Anonymous said...

It looks like one of the tongs targeted the Chans, maybe for something they did to cross them.

Anonymous said...

Somebody knew that Mr. Chan was in China.
Their movements were being carefully followed by somebody slick with international connections.
The Chinese are known for keeping stashes of cash and other valuable items in their homes.
This was definitely an inside job requiring inside information.
Maybe the son had to pay off some debts owed and had no other choice.

Anonymous said...

How did the intruders just "change the locks" while Anita Chan was at work? Why didn't she just call the cops and demand the intruders produce the paperwork showing the mortgage bank had taken legal possession and were agents for the bank?

Anonymous said...

The phrase "blame the victim" comes to mind when reading some of these comments.