Nigerian Identity Thief Admits Role In Graceland Foreclosure Scam
on May 30, 2024
Someone is taking credit for the foreclosure auction that nearly took place regarding Graceland, Elvis Presley’s famous estate in Memphis, Tennessee.
In a whirlwind of events that caused stress and panic for no reason, Graceland will not be sold at a foreclosure auction. Not even ten days ago, the public was reading headlines from trusted news sources that the Graceland estate would be auctioned off to the public.
A legal notice, which we now know was a scam, stated that Presley’s iconic estate would be sold at auction on May 23. Presley’s granddaughter, Riley Keough, inherited the estate following her mother, Lisa Marie Presley’s death in January 2023.
Keough and her legal team immediately learned of this notice and acted swiftly, stating that their claims were fake.
The legal notice stated that Lisa Marie Presley took out a $3.8 million loan from the Missouri-based company Naussany Investments and Private Lending and used Graceland as collateral. The company said Presley never repaid the loan before passing away, resulting in Graceland’s foreclosure.
Keough’s legal team filed a 60-page lawsuit claiming Presley never borrowed money from them, the signature they have on file for Presley is forged, the company is fake, and the documents are fake as well.
Local Memphis news station WREG investigated Naussany’s legitimacy, and their findings were alarming but also in line with Keough’s claims. The phone number listed in the documents is not in service, and all the emails are either outlook.com or hotmail.com instead of business emails. Additionally, a man whose name was listed several times in the document replied back, saying he had “not been affiliated with Naussany Investments & Private Lending since 2015.”
The Associated Press also looked into the company and found that Naussany Investments was not listed “in state databases of registered corporations in Missouri or Florida,” where the court documents stated the company was from.
On May 22, a Tennessee judge halted the foreclosure auction.
According to WREG, the Shelby County Registrar’s Office never received any documents related to a deed on Graceland, further disproving Naussany’s alleged claims. Additionally, Deputy Administrator Clint Anderson said that for a foreclosure sale to move forward, the Registrar’s office would have to certify a filed and notarized documentation, which had not been done.
AP News also stated that the notary listed in the court documents revealed that she had never had an interaction with Lisa Marie Presley, let alone notarize these documents for her.
Who did it?
According to the New York Times, a self-proclaimed identity thief from Nigeria is taking credit for this. The person sent an email to the New York Times saying he is the ring leader of hackers scattered all over the world, even in America, who prey on the dead and elderly, especially those from California or Florida.
“We figure out how to steal. That’s what we do,” the email read.
When they set their target on Graceland, the person said the effort not “a legitimate attempt to collect on a debt, but as a scam.”
“I had fun figuring this one out and it didn’t succeed very well,” the email read.
The email stated the person was in Nigeria, but it was written in Luganda, which is a Bantu language spoken in Uganda. To add even more confusion to this case, the email was faxed from a North American toll-free number.
The foreclosure case is pending, so hopefully this will be enough to close it. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti did announce on May 23 that his office would be looking into the attempted foreclosure sale, so stay tuned for an update.
