On March 9, 2010, Roger Arias and his mother Martina Duran, owners of the nightclub Club Kalua, were indicted with 327 counts of identity theft and mortgage fraud for deceptively buying and selling three properties in Queens, New York City.
From July 2006, Arias and Duran allegedly gave two of his clients’ personal information when acting as a real estate broker to imposters-buyers who act on their behalf. These imposter-buyers would buy and sell properties in Queens when the original persons were not even residing in the United States anymore.
After an investigation by the NYPD’s Financial Crime Task Force, and the Economic Crimes Bureau a total of $2 million were reveled to have been purported by Arias and Duran’s mortgage scheme.
Arias and Duran were both charged with 2nd degree forgery, 2nd degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, 1st degree falsifying business records, and 4th degree criminal facilitation, punishable of up to 15 years of imprisonment.
