Former Cook County land bank employee charged with fraud

A former Cook County Land Bank Authority employee faces a federal charge over a scheme to fraudulently purchase and resell properties from the agency on his own behalf.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago said Mustafaa Saleh, 36, is charged with one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Saleh’s arraignment in U.S. District Court in Chicago has not yet been scheduled.

Saleh worked as an asset manager for the governmental entity, which promotes the redevelopment and reuse of vacant, foreclosed, abandoned and tax-delinquent real estate by acquiring and transferring the property to private ownership.

The agency sells the properties at below-market rates and prohibits buyers from selling or renting them until the new owner has improved the property to the land bank’s standards. The land bank prohibits its employees from buying a property from the agency unless it will serve as the employee’s primary residence.

From 2016 to 2021, Saleh used “straw” buyers to fraudulently purchase six properties from the land bank for himself. He then redeveloped, resold or otherwise used the properties for his own financial benefit, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The properties were located in Chicago and in the southwest suburbs of Oak Lawn and Midlothian.

Saleh is also accused of fraudulently obtaining maintenance work from the land bank by forming a property maintenance company called Evergreen Property Services and directing someone else to pose as the business’ owner. Land bank employees are banned from having a financial interest in property maintenance companies that contract with the agency.

The Cook County Land Bank Authority came under fire earlier this year for hiring Michael Del Galdo, a lawyer who was living with the top aide to the chair of the agency’s board. In 2020, the agency fired an employee after its director found out she had scored a deal on a vacant house, then evaded paying thousands of dollars in property taxes.

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