Mortgage fraud is family affair

A former vice president of Sun Trust Mortgage in Annandale, Moshin Raza, 51, was sentenced to 24 months in prison April 29 for conspiracy and wire fraud affecting a financial institution, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia reports. His wife, Humaira Iqbal, 40 was sentenced to 15 months in prison on the same charges.

The couple, who live in Woodbridge, were also ordered to forfeit two properties and $40,000 and pay restitution to victims totaling more than $1.92 million.

They were convicted by a federal jury on Feb. 3, along with the wife’s brothers, Farukh Iqbal, 41, and Mohammad Ali Haider, 33, both of Chantilly. The two brothers were each sentenced to one year and one day in prison.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Raza was hired by Sun Trust Mortgage in 2005 as a vice president tasked with opening an office at 7619 Little River Turnpike. Raza hired his wife and her brothers to work there as loan officers. From 2006 until they left the bank in 2007, they falsified loan applications for borrowers and purchased fake tax documents to support the false loan applications.

SunTrust Mortgage underwriters in Richmond approved the loans totaling several million dollars based in large part on the fake documents in the files. As a result, borrowers were given loans to buy homes they could not afford.