Sultana Siddiqui, Mortgage Fraud, Maryland 2016

Grimy Times Exclusive

A North Potomac mortgage broker has pleaded guilty to defrauding investors of over $400,000 in an investment scheme.

Sultana Siddiqui, aka ‘Sultana Ahmad,’ 56, of North Potomac, Maryland, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire and mail fraud on July 25, 2016 in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.

According to her plea, Siddiqui was a mortgage broker who falsely represented to individual victims that co-conspirator Alexander Matthews was an investor or developer who could secure substantial returns on the victims’ investments in a short time period.

Siddiqui solicited investments from each of the victims, vouched for Matthews’s trustworthiness and business acumen, and received money from the victims. She deposited most of the money from the victims into her personal bank account. Then she and/or Matthews would provide each victim with a post-dated check in the amount of the victim’s investment plus the promised return.

The victims were left with significant financial losses, with Siddiqui and Matthews defrauding them of approximately $355,000. Siddiqui also admitted to defrauding another individual of $50,000 in a transaction in 2014.

Siddiqui faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang scheduled her sentencing for July 25, 2016, at 2:30 p.m.

Alexander Matthews, 50, of Dunn Loring, Virginia, pleaded guilty in 2011 in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia to his participation in the conspiracy and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The Maryland Mortgage Fraud Task Force was established to unify the agencies that regulate and investigate mortgage fraud and promote the early detection, identification, prevention and prosecution of mortgage fraud schemes.

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