Hells Angel Commits Mortgage Fraud For Marijuana Grow House

In September I covered a story about two leaders of the Hells Angels that had been accused of mortgage fraud. A mortgage broker in the San Francisco bay area was charged with conspiracy to arrange more than $10 million in fraudulent home loans including the two Hells Angels leaders.

Raymond Foakes, former President of the Hells Angels Sonoma Chapter, pleaded guilty in October to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, wire fraud and money laundering and was sentenced last week to 70 months in prison and ordered to pay $1,085,000 in restitution for his role in the multi-million dollar mortgage fraud scheme.

According to the plea agreement, Foakes admitted that from 2006 until early 2007, he was involved in a scheme to fraudulently obtain mortgage loans for parcels of real property located in Northern California, including for a property located at Laguna Road in Santa Rosa, California.

As part of this conspiracy, Foakes submitted a series of false statements on mortgage loan applications and altered bank statements. For example, the applications falsely stated that he had been self-employed as owner of “Foakes Concrete” for approximately 10 years where he made approximately $24,000 per month, and the bank statements reflected inflated account balances and recurring deposits. Rather than occupy the property as a primary residence, as he stated on his applications he intended to do, he allowed it to be used as a marijuana grow house. Further, Foakes laundered the criminally-derived proceeds by engaging in financial transactions over $10,000.

Foakes was one of several defendants indicted by a federal grand jury in the conspiracy on September 1, 2011. He was charged with conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to maintain drug involved premises – Source.

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