Kyiv residents were robbed of 16 apartments worth more than a million dollars: housing scam organization exposed

A criminal group has misappropriated real estate worth more than $1 million from Kyiv residents. This was reported by the National Police and the Prosecutor General's Office, UNN reports.

Details

According to the investigation, lawyers, private notaries, state registrars and civilians were involved in the illegal activities.

At one time, the victims took out mortgages from a bank to buy apartments. During the liquidation of financial institutions, a commercial enterprise specially created by the criminals bought out the balances under the loan agreements. The company was supposed to warn citizens about this, as well as inform them about new loan repayment schedules and terms. Instead, the defendants forged documents on behalf of banking institutions and post offices to create grounds for foreclosure.

Eventually, they used these documents to conclude property sale and purchase agreements among themselves. In this way, they re-registered the apartments in the names of their close relatives.

In addition, to speed up the process of seizing property, the members of the criminal organization tried to force the real owners of the apartments out. They waited for them to leave the apartment or, in their absence, broke into the apartment and changed the locks and moved in so-called tenants.

This was done on the basis of the alleged sale of housing despite the absence of a court decision. In total, during 2017-23, the criminals illegally seized 16 apartments of Kyiv residents for a total of more than a million dollars.

The victims include military personnel, the elderly, and minors. Currently, members of the criminal organization and their accomplices have been notified of suspicion.

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