United States of America v. Victor Hugo Villalobos Almazan and Nayeli Noemi Montoya Rodriguez

San Diego, California criminal defense lawyers represented the Defendants charged with bank fraud.

Reported by Kent Morlan

Victor Hugo Villalobos Almazan and his wife, Nayeli Noemi Montoya Rodriguez, Mexican nationals entered the United States on tourist visas.

They posed as legitimate property owners and used fraudulent documents to sell real estate they did not own to unsuspecting buyers. They then routed the proceeds from the illegal sales through bank accounts controlled by the defendants.

To carry out the scheme, the defendants’ co-conspirators created email addresses that closely resembled those of the legitimate property owners and used them to market properties they did not own to unsuspecting buyers, the plea agreement said. By conducting transactions entirely through email, they avoided meeting buyers in person and concealed their identities.

Once a sale was arranged, the defendants’ co-conspirators used forged property transfer documents that falsely appeared to bear the property owner’s signature, allowing ownership of the property to be fraudulently transferred to the unwitting buyer. Villalobos and Montoya admitted they opened bank accounts using business names similar to those of the legitimate property owners and used those accounts to receive the illicit proceeds from the fraudulent sales before transferring the money abroad.

Villalobos and Montoya admitted they lied to open bank accounts to facilitate the illegal sales of homes at 3873 36th Street and 555 Hollister Street in San Diego. The plea agreement said the defendants received:

$400,748.41 of illicit proceeds from the fraudulent sale of 3873 36th Street. In April 2023, Montoya transmitted nearly the entire amount of money to bank accounts in Mexico.
$561,463.25 of illicit proceeds from the fraudulent sale of 555 Hollister Street. Upon receipt, Villalobos withdrew all the money by international wire transfers to accounts in Mexico and Jordan, and in cash withdrawals.