By Calvin Palmer
New York’s Daily News, famed for its punchy and witty headlines, still believes in the old-fashioned virtues of journalism. On Monday, it proceeded to steal the Empire State Building in an attempt to expose a loophole in the city’s legal system.
It is a newspaper’s job to expose absurdity, corruption, lies and deceit; to champion the cause of the underdog and fight injustice. Sadly, in America, too many newspapers want to lead a quiet life and avoid upsetting politicians, celebrities and, most important of all, advertisers.
The Daily News took just 90 minutes to spring what it described as “one of the biggest heists in American history,” by stealing the $2 billion (₤1.35 billion) 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in the heart of Manhattan.
The newspaper drew up a batch of bogus documents, made a fake notary stamp and filed paperwork with the city to transfer the deed to the property. In doing so, it expressed a sense of humor more commonly seen in the British press.
Most American newspapers seldom have a sense of humor, well not intentionally so. The number of errors, crass headlines and the poor standard of journalism I witness on a daily basis, courtesy of The Florida Times-Union ,often has me laughingbut more in disbelief.
The Daily News used Fay Wray, the star of the original King Kong movie, as a witness and the notary shared a name with bank robber Willie Sutton.
It was all in a good cause, to expose the gaping loophole in New York City’s system for recording deeds, mortgages and other transactions. The Office of the City Register does not require clerks to verify the information.
Within 90 minutes of submitting the bogus documents, the agency rubber-stamped the transfer of the New York landmark from Empire State Land Associates to Nelots Properties, LLC. More humor again from the Daily News, Nelots as the sharp-eyed among you will have noted is “stolen” spelled backwards.
The paper returned the building back to its rightful owners yesterday but the exercise did demonstrate how easy it is for fraudsters to steal the deeds to a property. And once those documents are in their possession, they can take out big mortgages and disappear, leaving a mess for property owners, banks and bureaucrats to clear up.
Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Richard Farrell said: “Crooks go where the money is. That’s why Willie Sutton robbed banks and this the new bank robbery.”
Farrell, who is prosecuting several deed fraud cases, added: “Once you have the deed, it is easy to obtain a mortgage.”
Asia Smith stole her 88-year-old grandmother’s house in Springfield Gardens, Queens, pocketing $445,000 (₤302,000) in mortgages she took out. Smith, 22, was arrested last December and is serving a one-year jail term for fraud.
The FBI says financial institutions filed 31 percent Suspicious Activity Reports involving mortgage fraud last year than in 2006.
Across the nation, lenders’ losses amounted to $813 million (₤551 million) and New York was one of the top ten mortgage fraud states.
The investigation by the Daily News disclosed that mortgage brokers, representatives of title companies, lending banks, lawyers and other involved in the mortgage process failed to verify identification and other information provided by thieves.
But this kind of fraud is not confined to the United States. In October, a forensic accountant with Navigant Consulting claimed mortgage lenders could have up to ₤17 billion ($25 billion) of fraudulent loans on their books in the United Kingdom.
In July, The Financial Services Agency announced new measures to curb the rising number of mortgage fraud cases.
All of which begs the question, why are the governments in both the United States and United Kingdom funneling vast amounts of taxpayers’ money to banks and financial institutions when it appears they are so lax in their business procedures.
I guess the criminal element will be laughing all the way to the bank and at our expense.
[Based on reports by the Daily News and the Press Association.]
