Why do large real estate fraud cases keep happening in the North Bay?

"The Marin County District Attorney's Office said it is looking into complaints from some of more than 100 investors in Pacific Private Money who say that since December they haven't been able to access money invested with the company. The company, which claimed to have funded over $2 billion in property loans over its nearly two-decade history, is now being run by a San Francisco restructuring firm, and the Novato office is closed."

"Oakland attorney Linda Lam was part of the Gibbs Mura team that brought a 2022 class-action federal lawsuit against what was then Umpqua Bank, alleging employees at its Novato branch overlooked 146 warnings from the institution's fraud-detection software and handled 179 transfers totaling $5.2 million to private accounts of PFI principals Ken Casey and Lewis Wallach."

"The scheme came to light following Casey's death in 2020. The firms were pushed into bankruptcy. That resulted in the recouping of up to $145 million from the sale of 70 apartment and office buildings and about $40 million recovered from early investors under bankruptcy law for Ponzi cases."

Pacific Private Money, a Novato-based real estate finance company claiming $2 billion in funded property loans over nearly two decades, abruptly closed with its office shuttered and operations transferred to a San Francisco restructuring firm. Over 100 investors report being unable to access their invested funds since December. The Marin County District Attorney's Office is investigating complaints to determine whether this represents a simple business failure or fraud. This situation echoes previous North Bay real estate scams, including the PFI case where Umpqua Bank employees overlooked 146 fraud-detection warnings, enabling $5.2 million in transfers to private accounts. That scheme resulted in $145 million recovered from property sales and $40 million from early investors under bankruptcy law.

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