How organized crime has mortgaged or sold at least 30 GTA homes without owners' knowledge

A year ago, Melissa Walsh says police assured her family it only happened to them. Fraudsters nearly sold her great uncle's east end Toronto home without the family's knowledge.

"We were told to move on, get over it," she said. 

But earlier this month a Toronto police press release revealed another case where scammers successfully sold a house before the real homeowners found out what happened. 

And now it turns out those two cases are likely just the tip of the iceberg. 

CBC Toronto has learned that a handful of organized crime groups are behind these real-estate frauds — in which at least 30 homes in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) have either been sold or mortgaged without the real owners' knowledge. Those revelations come from a private investigation firm working for a title insurance company to try and get to the bottom of the scams, which are costing insurers millions in claims. 

"It's a very painstaking process to try and understand who's behind it," said Brian King, president and CEO of King International Advisory Group.

"We're sort of aware of four or five loosely organized groups that are working in the GTA."

The firm is currently investigating four title transfer frauds across the GTA where the ownership of a home was stolen using identity theft to cash in on the sale of the property. And at least another 26 mortgage frauds where mortgages have been registered on a home without the owner's consent to obtain the cash value of the mortgage. 

"Hearing that this has happened to potentially over 30 other families is hard to wrap your head around," said Walsh. "I don't understand why this hasn't been discussed before this point."

In addition to the four claims King is investigating, the three other title insurers offering coverage in Canada told CBC Toronto they've also all received fraud claims where a homeowner's property was sold without their knowledge. However they couldn't provide specific numbers before publication. 

Karen Decker, senior vice president for Stewart Title, said the company has had "many more than one" case of a house being sold out from under the real homeowner in the Toronto area.

So how does this actually happen? King says an organized crime group starts by looking through publicly available property records for a home without a mortgage — or a small one where there's still a lot of equity left in the property — as a target. 

From there, the groups who ultimately receive the fraudulent funds use stolen IDs and hire "stand-ins" to pose as tenants to gain access to the home, and other "stand-ins" impersonate homeowners to mortgage or sell it.

"A lot of times they're petty criminals that are paid anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 to stand-in and pose as the homeowners," said King. "The people behind the frauds do not want to be front-facing."