On October 8, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced that lawsuits have been filed against three individuals and three companies in the Manhattan area, including a Chinese individual, accusing them of conspiring to impersonate the heir of a deceased property owner and steal a brownstone building in Harlem worth over a million dollars, engaging in contract fraud and loan fraud using this scheme.
The defendants include 35-year-old Angela Jazmin Ramos Malpica (or Ramos), 41-year-old Yuan Kuei Li (phonetically spelled), and 34-year-old Abdur Rahman, as well as three companies: Great Neck Acquisitions Inc. (GNA), White Lotus Consulting Inc. (WLC), and Ocean Property and Trading Inc. (OPT).
The three defendants are alleged to have obtained ownership of the victim’s building and secured mortgage loans and construction loans fraudulently for renovating the building before selling it for profit.
They face charges of multiple serious crimes, including first-degree grand larceny, first-degree criminal possession of stolen property, first-degree mortgage fraud, two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, two counts of first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, and four counts of first-degree identity theft.
According to the prosecution documents, in 2018, the owner of a brownstone building on West 131st Street, Oaklyn Marrero, passed away, leaving the property to her husband, children, and grandchildren, with an estimated value exceeding one million dollars.
On April 2024, Ramos allegedly pretended to be a heir of the Marrero family and sold the property to Li for $950,000, with Li posing as a “straw buyer.” Ramos signed multiple sales and transfer documents, including a deed with forged signatures and personal information of Marrero’s family members. The prosecution pointed out that the real family members never signed or authorized anyone to sign any contracts.
On the same day of purchasing the property, Li resold it to Rahman and his controlled company “Great Neck Acquisitions” for $1.515 million, with no actual payments made between them. Rahman did not pay Li for the purchase, and Li did not pay the $950,000 for the property. Instead, the three defendants used the stolen property as collateral to fraudulently obtain a total of $1.636 million in mortgage and construction loans.
In the related loan documents, Great Neck Acquisitions listed Rahman, White Lotus Consulting, and Ocean Property and Trading as guarantors. On April 25, 2024, the deed and loan documents were officially registered with the New York City Department of Finance, with Great Neck Acquisitions becoming the nominal owner, signed by Rahman on behalf of the company.
The prosecution disclosed that Ramos subsequently cashed three checks totaling approximately $250,000 from the fraudulently obtained loans; Rahman withdrew around $487,000 from the construction loan, deposited into Great Neck Acquisitions’ account, and further transferred about $265,000 to Li’s controlled construction company, MSK Construction Team Inc., for ongoing renovations of the stolen property, with Li being the contractor for the property at that time.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg stated, “These defendants are alleged to have conspired to exploit a grieving family, impersonating heirs to steal their assets. In a time of housing scarcity, I will not tolerate anyone using such despicable means to plunder the assets of the Harlem community. These actions target long-time New York residents, and we will prosecute these crimes seriously.”
He urged anyone suspicious of deed fraud to contact the Housing and Tenant Protection Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office at 212-335-3300 or email [email protected].