Fake Real Estate Agent Charged With Using $80K Pocketed From Would-Be Homebuyer To Purchase Target Home In Her Own Name

In Stanislaus County, California, The Modesto Bee reports:

• A Ceres woman posed as a real estate agent and forged signatures to swipe $80,000 from an unsuspecting Spanish-speaking couple who thought they were buying a Modesto home, an arrest warrant says. Griselda Flores, 50, was arrested [] by the Stanislaus County district attorney's real estate fraud unit and charged with grand theft, forgery and impersonating a real estate agent. Bail was set at $25,000.

• Flores, who is bilingual, gained the victims' trust over several years while preparing their taxes at her Ceres office, the warrant says. She showed them a few houses and arranged to sell one whose owner faced foreclosure [...] for $98,000, accepting an $80,000 cash down payment, the document says.

• The couple believed that Flores would arrange an $18,000 loan for them, they told investigators. Instead, Flores forged receipts to fool them and arranged to buy the home for $80,000 in her name using a 3 percent down payment and a falsified loan application, the document states.

For the story, see Ceres woman arrested in real estate swindle.