MORTGAGE SCHEME TIED TO POT PLOTS

VANCOUVER -- Up to 100 large-scale marijuana growing operations have been
found in Lower Mainland houses identified by government regulators as part
of an elaborate scheme to get mortgages by using false employment records
and banking documents, the Vancouver Sun reports.

Police and regulators are concerned the fraudulent securing of mortgages
with the alleged assistance of some realtors is part of a co-ordinated
effort by organized criminals to purchase grow-op houses for the thriving
B.C. marijuana trade.

The RCMP is examining links between a mortgage broker, a pair of real
estate agents currently under investigation and these properties.

The police probe was triggered by an investigation by the Financial
Institutions Commission into more than 900 mortgages brokered by Danh Van
Nguyen, who had been running a company called Express Mortgages Ltd.

RCMP Insp. Paul Nadeau said Friday about 10 per cent of the houses in the
Nguyen files seized by Financial Institutions Commission investigators in
March 2003 "were confirmed as grow-ops."

In an Aug. 30 ruling, the commission alleges that Nguyen breached mortgage
broker regulations by fabricating employment records with inflated incomes,
to help some clients qualify for mortgages. His penalty hearing is to be
held Oct. 18.

Nguyen still proclaims his innocence, claiming he was not involved in a
scheme to write bogus letters. Some of the documents found on his computer
when it was seized last year were merely the result of his wife helping
clients to write letters they were to get their employers to sign, he said
Friday.

"It's biased. It is a kangaroo court," Nguyen said of the Financial
Institutions Commission investigation.

He also claimed he did not know so many of the houses for which he brokered
mortgages were linked to marijuana until commission investigators told him.

"I have no fault in that," he said. "I don't know what they use the house
for. I never went to the homes. I did the financing before they bought the
homes."

Asked if he could have been used without his knowledge by an organized
crime ring involved in marijuana growing, Nguyen said: "I don't know about
that. All the people who came to me appeared to be normal people."

He said he has now got out of the mortgage business, but would not disclose
his new enterprise because "it is personal."

Just this week, he changed the name of his company, Express Mortgages, to
Dragon King Investments Inc., according to corporate registry documents.
The new company also shows a slight name change for Nguyen, who has
reversed the order of his first two names.

The Financial Institutions Commission, which regulates credit unions,
mortgage brokers and real estate agents, began its probe into Express in
early 2003 when two banks raised concerns about a series of Nguyen
mortgages, according to Ken Fraser, commission executive director of
investigations. Search warrants were executed at an office used by Express,
as well as at Nguyen's Surrey residence, which is listed in the name of his
wife, Lisa Tran.

Fraser said his team focused on a sampling of 20 mortgage files and found
fraudulent documentation in every case.

"We did send investigators out to try and confirm ownership of some of
these properties," Fraser said. "In a lot of the residences that we
visited, we either found there was no one living there, the individual
living there was not the individual on title, or the individual living
there did not know they were on title."

Fraser said it is possible that the names being used for the mortgage
applications are being obtained through identity fraud involving, in
particular, new immigrants from the Vietnamese community.