New York Daily News ‘steals’ Empire State
In what it described as “one of the biggest heists in American history”, the New York Daily News stole the $2 billion 102-storey Art Deco skyscraper in the heart of Manhattan.
The newspaper, which listed original King Kong star Fay Wray as a witness in the batch of false documents, made a fake $30 notary stamp which shared a name with bank robber Willie Sutton, and filed paperwork with the city to transfer the deed to the property.
Just 90 minutes later, the city registrar rubber-stamped the transfer of the Manhattan landmark from Empire State Land Associates to the newspaper’s fake company, Nelots Properties LLC. Nelots reads “stolen” backwards.
The stunt, which the newspaper splashed under the headline Skycaper, comes after a series of deed fraud cases in the city.
Brooklyn assistant district attorney Richard Farrell, who is prosecuting several such cases, said: “Crooks go where the money is. That’s why Willie Sutton robbed banks, and this is the new bank robbery. Once you have the deed, it’s easy to obtain a mortgage.”
The system, run by the office of the city register, does not require clerks to verify the information — a feature the newspaper described as “a gaping loophole in the city’s system for recording deeds, mortgages and other transactions”.
Unlike the thieves, the News did not obtain a mortgage on the Empire State Building and simply returned the property to its rightful owners, less than 24 hours after the fake deed was filed.
In October, a forensic accountant with Navigant Consulting claimed mortgage lenders could have up to €20 billion of fraudulent loans on their books in Britain.
Paul Doxey and other experts told Channel 4 News there had been a boom in fake applications over recent years, involving the purchase of as many as 60,000 properties.
And in July, the British Financial Services Authority announced tough new measures to try to curb soaring numbers of mortgage fraud cases.
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