Mysterious Ring Of Identity Thieves Claims Credit For Scheme To Fraudulently Auction Off Graceland
Someone claiming to be part of an anonymous ring of identity thieves says he and his team were behind a plot to fraudulently auction off Graceland, Elvis Presley's iconic Memphis mansion https://t.co/cHlvoYcNvd
- Stereogum (@stereogum) May 28, 2024
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Last week, Elvis Presley’s iconic Memphis mansion Graceland was scheduled to go up for auction to settle $3.8 million in unpaid debts taken out by the late Lisa Marie Presley. The only problem was, according to the Presley estate, no such loan was ever issued.
Actress Riley Keough, who is Lisa Marie’s daughter and Elvis’ granddaughter, went to court last week to stop the sale from moving forward, arguing that the 2018 promissory note confirming the loan was fraudulent. She included an affidavit from the named Florida notary who confirmed she never even met Lisa Marie Presley.
In court Wednesday, the judge paused the foreclosure sale until more information could be uncovered. After initially suggesting they’d move forward, the company attempting to auction off Graceland, Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC, withdrew its claims on the property by the end of the day (Court records, however, do not yet list any motion by Naussany Investments to drop its claim) and apologized to Keough. Investigations by CNN and NBC showed the company and the men behind it, Gregory and Kurt Naussany, do not exist.
Now, as the FBI investigates the case, people claiming to be involved with the mysterious company have been talking to the media to claim credit. Keep in mind TMZ said Graceland officials told the FBI that AN INDIVIDUAL was behind the scheme so grain of salt.
In its September filing, Naussany Investments said it would agree to settle what it described as the debt for a discounted $2.85 million, which would be paid by the Presley family trust. But the trust, now led by Presley’s daughter, the actress Riley Keough, did not view the debt as legitimate.
Eight months after Presley’s death, Naussany Investments did file papers in probate court in California posting what it said was Ms. Presley’s debt from 2018. It included a deed of trust, with a signature represented as Ms. Presley’s (which Keough would say was forged), that put forward Graceland as collateral. But Clint Anderson, the deputy administrator of the Shelby County Register of Deeds, said his office does not have on file a deed of trust or any other documents from Naussany Investments “to legitimize this company foreclosing on any other property in Shelby County.”
Media outlets often receive unsolicited emails from people who make outlandish claims. But the email arrived Friday in response to one sent by The Times to an email address that Naussany listed in a legal filing sent to a Tennessee court reviewing the foreclosure case.
In its email, The Times referred to the company’s claim that Presley had borrowed $3.8 million from it, using Graceland as collateral. In the responses, which came from the email address The Times had written to, the writer described the foreclosure effort not as a legitimate attempt to collect on a debt, but as a scam.
“I had fun figuring this one out and it didn’t succeed very well,” the email writer said.
He said he was based in Nigeria and his email was written in Luganda, a Bantu language spoken in Uganda. But the filing with the email address was faxed from a toll-free number designed to serve North America; it was included in documents sent to the Chancery Court in Shelby County, Tenn., where the foreclosure case is still pending.
The person claimed to be part of a ring of identity thieves operating on the dark web, a group that preyed on mostly dead and elderly people, especially from Florida and California, exploiting information obtained from birth certificates and other documents. “We figure out how to steal,” the person wrote. “That’s what we do.”
The writer contacting the Times claimed to be based in Nigeria. His message was written in Luganda, a Bantu language spoken in Uganda. But the court filings from Naussany were faxed from a toll-free number designed to serve North America.
And although the court documents feature fluent English, the emails are written in broken Bantu, according to a translator consulted by the NYT.
Naussany Investments has listed several email addresses in its court filings. Both emails received by The Times in recent days came from the address associated with Gregory Naussany that was listed in the company’s court filing. In each, the writer advanced the view that he was part of a sophisticated identity fraud operation that had particularly targeted Americans, who were described as gullible.
When The Times sought further clarification on specific issues, the writer replied, “You don’t have to understand.” The writer did not suggest any reasoning for being so forthcoming in the emails beyond taking credit for what he described as the ring’s success in other cases.
“I am the one who creates trouble,” the writer said to open his first email on Friday.
In his email, the self-professed identity thief ultimately conceded that Keough had outmaneuvered him, telling the New York Times: “Yo client dont have nothing to worries, win fir her. She beat me at my own game.”
A lawyer for Keough declined to comment on Tuesday.
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Source, NY Times archive