It's Mortgage Felony Friday!
I will start posting a dashboard of where I am at with mortgage fraud documentation and reporting. I have a spreadsheet that goes with this that includes ALL of the suspects, addresses, and other details, and I may publish redacted portions of that (or provide less redacted portions to agencies or journalists by request). Remember that I am one dude manually looking at just a few areas in Greater Phoenix maybe an hour or so every day for the last few weeks. Imagine what a bigger/smarter team with better systems/methods and access to data would find looking at all major metropolitan areas in the United States!? I can dream right!? As a reference, I can find, vet, and completely document a slam-dunk mortgage fraud in about 20-30 minutes. I might slow down if they get harder to find (I don't see that happening…), but at this rate I will get to my first $100 million pretty quickly!
Fraud Dashboard:
Mortgage Fraud Documented: $7.9M (ie initial mortgage value)
Mortgage Fraud Reported to the Feds: $5.1M
Mortgage Fraud Published on Substack (including below): $1.5M
Mortgage Fraud Acted Upon (any acknowledgement/info from the feds): .5M
Mortgage Fraud Prosecuted or Civil Diversion: Zero.
Mortgage Fraud Retracted (ie, mitigations I was unaware of or simple error*): Zero.
Instances of Other Frauds Found (ie Social Security, Securities Fraud): 2
$ Value of Other Fraud (recoverable or potential penalties): $250,000
*My great hope is that I can keep this at a zero. I only publish/report what I consider to be slam-dunks with little possible room for mitigation, and I try to corroborate the data across many platforms, but there can always be errors in the data and documentation (wrong addresses, wrong dates, even wrong/duplicate names). If I have reported or published something in error, I will absolutely report the error and retract the allegations if they were made public. To date no one inside or outside the regulatory agencies has been able to demonstrate to me that these are not obvious federal felonies punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $1 Million in fines and disgorgement (with a Statute of Limitation of 10 years in case you thought you were getting away with it…).
As a reminder, my first slam dunk (and a preamble to this story) is here. Onto today's felony:
I discovered this one when I found Ms. Kwee's online "brag" about her income property, which included the name of her mortgage broker.
Decided to check out his properties/mortgages! Not only is Mr. Kosenkov personally committing mortgage occupancy fraud, he appears to be encouraging and colluding with others (like Svitlana…) to commit mortgage occupancy fraud and earning commissions off of that as well. Profiting off the whole ponzi scheme while crowding out honest folks from affordable housing in good neighborhoods. All backed by the government/regulations (or lack of oversight) to subsidize home-builders and the real-estate industry instead of actual homebuyers & renters. Why??? Even with the small (but quickly growing) sample of frauds that I have found, the system is obviously broken. All of this guy's mortgages need to be reviewed (happy to volunteer! ;)).
Ilya and Darina Kosenkov (it’s nice to put a “ahem” face to the names…)
Suspect - Ilya Valeryevich Kosenkov (DOB 10/7/1980)
Principal Residence - Mr. Kosenkov (and his wife Darina) purchased 13124 NE 149th St. Woodinville, WA 98072 for $1.125M on 10/2/2020. The current mortgages on the home include an $850,000 30 yr conventional 1st mortgage with BOA taken out on 1/10/2022 (fixed/10yr arm 2.5%) and a $500,000 40 yr conventional 2nd mortgage taken out with PNC on 8/17/2022 (variable, initial 3.34%). Rates seem a little low for 80%+ and then 100%+ LTV, but what do I know about "risk" ;)
Licensed Professional - Mr. Kosenkov is a licensed mortgage broker in 38 states (according to him).
Income Property 1 - Mr. Kosenkov purchased 923 N. 14th Ave. Hollywood FL 33020 on April 9th, 2021 for $540,000 financed by a $432,000 30yr conventional mortgage with BOA (fixed, 10 yr arm 2.25% fixed). There is a 2nd home rider, and it does appear that the home was remodeled and used primarily for short-term rentals. Ie I am not alleging any wrongdoing here, although the interest rate would appear somewhat ridiculous for what is essentially a pure income property.
Income Property 2 - On December 3rd, 2021, Mr. Kosenkov purchased yet another "2nd home" at 5901 E Kings Ave Scottsdale, Arizona, 85254 for $850,000 with a $680,000 30 year conventional mortgage with KeyBank (fixed, 10yr arm 2.5%). There is a 2nd home rider on this one as well, but…
Rental of Income Property 2 - Income Property 2 was listed (on hotpads and zillow…see below) for long-term rental on 2/17/2022 for $4,350 per month (listing removed 3/20/22). Home appears to have been rented/occupied by Jeffrey Charles Lemieux and Abigail Kristina Tiegen. Additionally, the address provided on Ms. Tiegen's Arizona driver's license #L120395 as of April/2022 (during a traffic stop) is 5901 E Kings Ave., Scottsdale. There is no evidence in either of the Kosenkovs extensive social media feeds that they have ever even been to Scottsdale (other than possibly to broker another fraudulent mortgage for Svitlana Kwee, although that was probably done remotely…). During the period they have owned the Scottsdale home: Cancun, yes. Florida, yes. Scottsdale Nada. It is and always was an income property with a 2.5% interest rate (while his principal residence appears underwater…). Also, shouldn't it be a "3rd home rider"…
Mortgage Occupancy Fraud wrt Income Property 2 - Requires a couple of questions, but seems fairly obvious. If it isn't, then why didn’t the rest of us start buying these up at 2.5% and renting them out???
Bankruptcy - Seems relevant that Mr. Kosenkov (and his ex-wife Anna Kosenkov…another Realtor! No!!!) filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy 2/4/10 (discharged 8/19/2010). Bankruptcy included underwater rental property and $220,000 in unsecured non-priority claims. Wouldn't shock me if he will be running up those credit cards once again (like the high risk $500K 2nd mortgage…).
Collusion - Seems relevant that Mr. Kosenkov was the mortgage broker involved in providing Svitlana Kwee with an owner-occupied mortgage on her self-admitted income property (and teaser/shocker, I have already found additional questionable transactions involving Kwee and Kosenkov..).
If this is all legal and as extensive as my limited sample appears to illustrate, honestly, what chance does an honest first-time homebuyer have!? Meanwhile the likes of Ms. Kwee (a licensed realtor) and Mr. Kosenkov (a licensed mortgage broker) are heavily promoting the purchase of homes and income properties at ANY price and ANY interest rate….Both went bankrupt with 6 figures in unsecured debt (not even including underwater homes…) post great recession, and both will go bankrupt again* if there is ANY meaningful oversight provided, or if history repeats as it often does, the obvious lack of oversight leads to another complete meltdown.