For the love of... money.

In the biggest fraud scheme in Alaska history, 9 real estate 'professionals' and an Anchorage based mortgage company have been indicted for conspiracy, 44 counts of wire fraud, 9 counts of bank fraud and 7 counts of making false statements.

Real estate agent and investor, Lance Lockard, bought numerous properties throughout Anchorage and immediately sold them to two straw buyers using inflated appraisals. When the loans funded, the straw buyers listed and sold the properties again using yet another round of inflated appraisals.

The alleged players in this little scheme includes lead defendant Lance Lockard, of Overlooked Properties, who concocted the scheme involving at least 30 properties in the Anchorage area.

Gary Paterna, Lockard's father in law and a quasi real estate investor, and Jonathan Ruf, an Anchorage builder acted as straw buyers.

Appraiser Charles Carlson allegedly inflated property appraisals, and in exchange, received substantial kick backs for doing so. In some cases, he even used the first round of inflated appraisals to support an even more inflated sales price when the properties were eventually sold to unsuspecting buyers.

Holly Stroud, working as a loan closer with Alyeska Title, Land Title Company and Stewart Title allegedly wrote fraudulent checks from the title company’s accounts and used the money to show down payments had been made by the straw buyers when in fact, none had. She then manipulated account records so as to hide the transactions. She also prepared fraudulent settlement statements that failed to show the cash the sellers were receiving back at closing.

Cerise Sanders and Suzan McCready of Alaska State Mortgage processed 13 of the 30 loans with 12 different lenders so as to hide the fact that the loans were not for owner-occupied primary residences as stated on their applications.

How Lockard managed to convince not only his father in law, but a builder, two real estate agents, a closing agent and two mortgage brokers to go along with this is beyond me. All the effort and energy it took to orchestrate and carry out this asinine scheme could have certainly been put to better use.

The US Attorney issued a statement earlier today saying, in part, that the investigation was continuing and that more indictments were expected.

Unbelievable. A good friend who sold real estate in Anchorage before moving to Fairbanks knows one of the agents involved and was very shocked to see his name mentioned. I've personally been involved with one transaction involving Suzan McCready and Alaska State Mortgage once. From that experience I can say I'm not the least bit surprised to see her or her company mentioned in an indictment.

To the buyers and sellers reading this, I ask you to believe that not all Realtors and mortgage brokers behave this way. Those that do, should be subjected to, at minimum, a public flogging once the government gets through with them. A one way ticket to the moon might also be in order; I'll even buy the first ticket.