A Two Thousand Dollar Nebraska Land Purchase Leads to a Federal Fraud Case
Sarah did not answer. She turned her chair slightly toward her filing cabinet and looked at a small yellow sticky note stuck to the corner of her computer monitor. It had a name and a telephone number with a three-zero-three area code written in her precise handwriting. I did not ask her whose number it was.
“We did find one thing in the state registry this morning,” Sarah said, turning back to me. “They did not file this under Brinley’s name. They used a registered entity called Desert Valley Land Partners.”
“I never heard of them,” I said.
“It is a fake property management front registered in Arizona,” Sarah said. “They registered it three years ago. Chadwick Fairmont used a commercial mail drop in Tucson to set up the corporate identity.”
“So they have done this before,” I said.
“Three times in Cochise County, Arizona,” Sarah said, tapping her finger on the document. “They find an isolated parcel with a minor cloud on the title, create a fake association, and file environmental nuisance claims until the owner walks away.”
She reached for her telephone, her fingers hovering over the keypad.
