A Texas man admitted to a $1.5 million scheme that sold land its owners never listed. Owners of empty or faraway property are the main targets.
A Texas man has pleaded guilty to helping run a scheme in which criminals pretended to be property owners, sold their land, and kept the money. The owners never knew their land was for sale. Moshe Levi, 61, of Carrollton, Texas, entered the plea on November 4 in federal court in Boston.
Prosecutors say the group went after vacant properties with no mortgage in Massachusetts, Georgia, Indiana and Tennessee. They looked for owners who lived out of state. They allegedly set up fake email addresses and internet phone accounts using the owners' personal details. They then got counterfeit driver's licenses and passports with the owners' names.
With those fake papers, the criminals posed as the owners and dealt with real estate professionals. They arranged listings, negotiated deals and transferred deeds to buyers who had no idea. The money then moved through bank accounts the group controlled. Levi pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Since around June 2023, he and others allegedly shared or tried to share about $1 million.
Halla Shami Jaraki and her husband Omar owned a vacant plot on Mattison Drive in Concord, Massachusetts. They live in South Carolina. They hoped to return one day or pass the land to one of their sons. In 2024, someone allegedly posing as the owner sold it for about $525,000.
The couple found out only after getting mail about building permits for land they thought was empty. By then, developers had started building a house. Construction stopped after the couple got a court injunction, which is a court order to halt something.
The FBI says deed fraud, also called title theft, is a growing problem. Remote sales make it easier, because sellers and buyers may never meet. A September 2026 survey by the American Land Title Association points the same way. Of 245 title insurance professionals, 59 percent said their firm had faced at least one seller impersonation attempt in the past year. In the 2024 survey, it was 28 percent.
Attempts are also more recent. In the new survey, 45 percent of firms saw one in the previous month, up from 19 percent in 2024. One in four firms that reported an attempt also reported a paid claim. Among firms that shared their costs, half said they topped $100,000.
Vacant land is the most targeted property type. Homes owned by people who live elsewhere, and properties with no mortgage, are also attractive to thieves. If that describes anything you own, or a relative's property, this applies to you. Title firms and real estate agents are on the front line too.
The alert box above lists the steps, including the warning signs to watch for and where to report suspected fraud.
Levi is scheduled to be sentenced on February 11, 2027. He faces up to 20 years in prison on each of the two charges. The material does not say whether others have been charged or how many owners were affected in total.
If you own empty or faraway land, check on it often, because a thief with a fake ID could sell it without you knowing.
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