Woman guilty of mortgage fraud

A jury found Eli Devoy, 47, guilty today on charges laid by the Serious Fraud Office following a 10 week trail in the Auckland District Court.

Devoy was also known aas Ellie Stone, Ghorbani and Elaheh Ghorbani Sar Sangi.

According to the summary of facts, Devoy conducted a series of property sales and purchases between July 2007 and December 2010 which deceived lending institutions into approving mortgage applications that contained false information and supporting documents.

The fraudulent scheme involved 11 properties in the Auckland area and amounted to approximately $9.2 million.

The six additional defendants who took part her scheme were Mehrdad Ghorbani (also know as Mohammad Ghorbani Sarsangi), Mehrzad Ghorbani (Mehdi Ghorbani), Hassan Salarpour, Nasrin Kardani, Mehran Ghorbani (Massoud Ghorbani, AKA Ken Williams) and Javad Toraby.  

SFO Director, Julie Read said: “This is an important case for genuine buyers who are applying for mortgages as the cost of borrowing is increased by this sort of fraudulent conduct. We will continue to work with banks who are targeted with false information. Every lender should be monitoring this risk and people applying for mortgages should be aware that there are significant penalties for those who do not provide truthful information.”

The defendants will reappear for sentencing on August 17.