{"id":368858,"date":"2026-10-09T12:34:45","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T12:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/368858\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T12:34:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T12:34:45","slug":"maspeth-man-indicted-with-others-for-running-phony-real-estate-investment-scheme-that-swindled-victims-out-of-nearly-3m-da-qns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/368858\/","title":{"rendered":"Maspeth man indicted with others for running phony real estate investment scheme that swindled victims out of nearly $3M: DA \u2013 QNS"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Maspeth<\/a> man and his four co-defendants were indicted by a Queens grand jury for conspiracy, possession of stolen property, identity theft and other crimes for conducting a fraudulent real estate investment scheme that swindled their victims out of nearly $ million. The defendants allegedly lured victims to invest in a firm that purported to buy distressed properties and renovate them for sale while the money went toward personal expenses including the purchase of luxury goods and to keep up the firms\u2019 appearance of legitimacy.<\/p>\n

According to the charges and investigation, Mauricio Villamarin, 55, of Maspeth, represented to numerous individuals that he was purchasing distressed residential properties, renovating them and selling them for profit through a company called World Business Holdings. Defendant Julian Velez, 46, of Rego Park<\/a>, was represented as an employee of Villamarin\u2019s at World Business Holdings. Villamarin and Velez pitched nearly all the victims of the scam to invest in the company. To further lure victims into their scheme, Villamarin and Velez taught courses on entrepreneurship and investing in real estate.\u00a0Many of these individuals said that they lacked capital to invest. <\/p>\n

Villamarin and Velez allegedly told victims that their lack of capital was no obstacle because World Business Holdings worked with a third-party consultant who could obtain loans and credit cards in the victims\u2019 names.<\/p>\n

Villamarin and Velez allegedly told victims that they could invest in the company by surrendering loan proceeds to World Business Holdings and by authorizing World Business Holdings to make charges on the credit cards. The duo allegedly promised most of the victims that they would be provided with monthly Zelle payments for their loan and credit card payment obligations until the victims saw profits from their investments.<\/p>\n

Defendant Linoshka Guzman, 35, of the Bronx, allegedly went to victims\u2019 homes, often accompanied by Villamarin, to complete loan and credit-card applications using the victims\u2019 personal information. The defendants often inflated the victims\u2019 incomes on the applications to fraudulently induce the banks to issue larger loans and credit cards with higher spending limits.<\/p>\n

After making their \u201cinvestments,\u201d some of the victims never received official updates about how their money was being used. Others were told that their money was invested into the \u201cfix-and-flip\u201d of specific homes in Corona, on Long Island or in Westchester County. A review of public records regarding the Corona and Westchester homes revealed that the defendants never purchased these properties.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Records revealed that a company controlled by the defendants purchased, renovated and sold the Long Island property but that the sale proceeds were diverted into bank accounts controlled by the defendants instead of being used for the benefit of the victims as the defendants had promised.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In one instance, the defendants allegedly induced a Spanish-speaking Connecticut couple to sign a document and then used these signatures and a fake notarization stamp to fraudulently convey the couple\u2019s home to a company they controlled. The defendants then took out a mortgage on the property to raise additional money for their scheme, all without the victims\u2019 knowledge.<\/p>\n

Some of the fraudulently obtained money was used to pay expenses that helped perpetuate the\u00a0company\u2019s appearance of legitimacy such as rent for office space in Long Island City<\/a>. Other money was used for personal expenses like restaurants, airfare, hotels, Lyft and Netflix and to buy goods from luxury retailers such as Louis Vuitton. The victims of the scheme were variously saddled with loan and credit card debt, forced to defend lawsuits from lenders, encumbered by monetary judgements or driven to file for bankruptcy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs alleged, these defendants promised to make the victims rich through real estate investments. Instead, they convinced the investors to take out loans and credit cards and used that money to line the defendants\u2019 own pockets,\u201d Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said.\u00a0 \u201cNow the victims are saddled with debts they cannot pay, ruined credit scores, lawsuits and bankruptcy. A family in Connecticut is in danger of losing their home to foreclosure because the defendants took out a mortgage on the property without their knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defendants were variously charged in a 78-count indictment with criminal possession of stolen property in the first degree, conspiracy in the fourth degree, scheme to defraud in the first degree, identity theft in the first degree, falsifying business records in the first degree and grand larceny in the second and third degrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thank my prosecutors and our partners at the United States Secret Service and the NYPD for working to hold these scammers to account,\u201d Katz said.\n<\/p>\n

Villamarin, Guzman, and Velez were arraigned on Tuesday, Oct. 6, before Queens Supreme Court Justice Leigh K. Cheng who ordered them to return to court on Oct. 29 and released them with non-monetary conditions. Defendant Diana Leal, 44, formerly of Jackson Heights, was apprehended in Florida and will be arraigned at a later date and one defendant remains at large. If convicted, they each face up to 25 years in prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese arrests reflect our commitment to holding accountable those who exploit victims\u2019 trust for personal gain,\u201d Matt McCool, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service New York Field Office, said. \u201cWorking with our law enforcement partners, we will continue to investigate complex financial fraud schemes and pursue those who use deception to leave victims with devastating financial losses.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Maspeth man and his four co-defendants were indicted by a Queens grand jury for conspiracy, possession of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[20733,20734,136198,136199,20736,334,3285,136200,136201,9,24,63,122,5193,124,123,136202,11231,136203],"class_list":["post-368858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-conspiracy","tag-criminal-possession-of-stolen-property","tag-defendant-julian-velez","tag-diana-leal","tag-falsifying-business-records","tag-grand-larceny","tag-identity-theft","tag-linoshka-guzman","tag-mauricio-villamarin","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-district-attorney-melinda-katz","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-real-estate-investment-scheme","tag-scheme-to-defraud","tag-world-business-holdings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}