Miami Property Scammers, Part 1

The Perfect Scam

AARP

True Crime, Aarp, Fraud, Society & Culture, Scam, Crime, Bobsullivan

4.5 • 980 Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Miami’s historic West Grove neighborhood has recently become a hot real estate market. So hot, in fact, that it has attracted the attention of scammers. It wasn’t always so. Shirley Gibson’s family has owned property in West Grove since her great-grandmother immigrated from the Bahamas over 100 years ago. Now in her 80s, Shirley had hoped to pass on the property to her niece and nephew. But when Shirley goes to pay her taxes one day, she learns that her property has been sold without her knowledge for $230,000. When another of her properties shows up on Zillow, it becomes clear this is not a fluke but an elaborate real estate scam, targeting property owners in this historically Black neighborhood.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This week on The Perfect Scamp.
0:02.0	Coconut Grove is one of the older neighborhoods in the city.
0:07.0	There's a specific area historically known as the Black Grove.
0:11.0	It was an African American community that has a really long and deep
0:16.4	and strong roots in the culture of Miami.
0:21.0	The Economic Crimes Unit and the Miami Police Department is investigating a new case of financial real estate fraud.
0:26.3	This vacant lot in Coconut Grove has been in Shirley Gibson's family her entire life.
0:31.3	I'm distraught from all of this that I have to fight to keep my
0:35.3	property.
0:37.0	Imagine you own a small slice of property. It's nothing magnificent. Just an empty lot. But it's your empty lot. Your little
0:46.6	piece of earth. It's been in your family for generations and has been handed down to you by your
0:52.2	parents.
0:53.0	You expected to leave it to a family member one day.
0:56.0	Then suddenly, you're told it's not yours anymore.
1:00.0	It's been bought and sold to a development company in New York.
1:05.0	This sounds unreal, but it's happening.
1:08.0	Today's guest went through this very real estate nightmare,
1:12.0	but didn't take it lying down. And when she fights back, well,
1:15.4	dozens of other victims come forward too, and the hunt is on for the criminals. Welcome back to the Perfect Scam. I'm your host Bob Sullivan.
1:27.0	And today's story brings us to Sunny Miami, to Historic Coconut Grove, one of the city's oldest neighborhoods, a tropical oasis
1:36.0	that's south of South Beach, a place founded by artists, intellectuals, pioneers, and adventurers in the 19th century. The Grove is a little Bahamian and a little
1:47.2	bohemian. Inside the Grove is West Grove, a Black majority neighborhood undergoing a dramatic renaissance gentrification,
	...

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