Mohammed Rezaian, Bid Rigging, California 2023

[Image: A foreclosure auction in California]

According to court documents, Mohammed Rezaian, a Northern California real estate investor, has agreed to plead guilty for his role in conspiracies to rig bids and commit mail fraud at public real estate foreclosure auctions in San Francisco and San Mateo counties, California. This is the 30th individual to plead guilty or agree to plead guilty as a result of the Antitrust Division’s ongoing antitrust investigations into bid rigging and fraud at public real estate foreclosure auctions in Northern California.

Felony charges were filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco against Rezaian on July 1, 2008, and the charges continued until January 2011. Rezaian is charged with conspiring with others not to bid against one another, but instead to designate a winning bidder to obtain selected properties at public real estate foreclosure auctions in San Francisco and San Mateo counties. He was also charged with conspiring to use the mail to carry out schemes to fraudulently acquire title to selected properties sold at public auctions, to make and receive payoffs, and to divert to co-conspirators money that would have otherwise gone to mortgage holders and others.

The primary purpose of the conspiracies was to suppress and restrain competition and to conceal payoffs in order to obtain selected real estate offered at San Francisco and San Mateo County public foreclosure auctions at non-competitive prices. When real estate properties are sold at these auctions, the proceeds are used to pay off the mortgage and other debt attached to the property, with remaining proceeds, if any, paid to the homeowner.

Rezaian, of Novato, Calif., faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine for individuals. The maximum fine for the Sherman Act charges may be increased to twice the gain derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by the victims if either amount is greater than $1 million. A count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

The charges today are the latest filed by the Antitrust Division in its ongoing investigation into bid rigging and fraud at public real estate foreclosure auctions in San Francisco, San Mateo, Contra Costa, and Alameda counties. Anyone with information concerning bid rigging or fraud related to public real estate foreclosure auctions should contact the Antitrust Division’s San Francisco office at 415-436-6660, visit www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.htm, or call the FBI tip line at 415-553-7400.

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