Hey Bernie, let's go boating!

Sure, why not? Doesn't Bernardo Barrera have a boat?  Surely you all remember that right before Mr. Bernardo Barrera claimed his identity was stolen by John Romney and crew for the Oak Avenue mortgage fraud scheme, he claimed his identity was stolen by another group to obtain a loan for the purchase of a boat.  What if anything does this have to do with the mortgage fraud story?  Let's start with the police report for this "boat deal"...

Bernardo Barrera Boat Identity Theft Police Report

Well, what do you know, Mr. Barrera tells the police that for reasons unbeknown to us or anyone else with a modicum of common sense, on February 8, 2008 he just decides out of the blue to check his credit report and finds a new loan that was opened up under his name without his knowledge.  Wow!  What are the chances?  That's the exact same way he found out about the fraudulent loan for the Oak Avenue home just a little over a month later!  We know Mr. Barrera has had trouble, according to him, receiving letters from different lending institutions at his primary residence, just a little while back we found at least 5 letters that Citi Mortgage sent to his primary residence in reference to the Oak Avenue home mortgage well before he claimed he found out about the fraud.  Do you guys think there's a chance that the bank that lent the money on this fraudulent boat deal could have possibly sent Mr. Barrera some correspondences regarding this loan to his primary residence before February 8 when he claimed he found out about the fraudulent activity on his credit report?  What are the chances?  Take a look for yourselves...

Bernardo Barrera Boat Loan Statement

What are the chances?  How much mail must have been going to Mr. Barrera's home that somehow never made it to Mr. Barrera?  Take a look at the pertinent dates on this loan statement, from what we can see it looks like the statement was mailed by GE Money bank on 1/25/08 from Atlanta, so how long could it have taken for the statement to reach Mr. Barrera's home?  Let's see, the 25th was a Friday, so lets say for the sake of argument that the mail takes 5 days to get to Mr. Barrera's home, that would put the statement in his mailbox no later than 1/31/08.  Now the reality is that mail from Atlanta to Miami takes no more than 3 days and is sometimes delivered in just 2 days, but for our purposes lets just assume that the statement was received on the 31st.  If that's the case then what did Mr. Barrera do with this statement during the seven days before he reported the identity theft?  Can anyone guess why Mr. Barrera waited till 2/8/08 to report this case?  We'll give you a hint, the answer is in the other documents that he supposedly didn't receive.

Does anything else about this loan statement for the fraudulent boat purchase strike you guys as strange?  Take a closer look at the statement, specifically the part that says "payment allocation"...

SEE THAT!  Someone made a payment on the loan!  WTF?!  Who the hell made the payment and how did they do it?  If you look back at the Maria Teresa Lopez and Irina Jackeline Ball mortgage fraud and identity theft case you'll see that there were payments made on that fraudulent loan as well.  In that case the police got copies of the money orders that were used to make the payments with, traced them back to where they were purchased and then were able to identify who actually purchased the money orders.  According to the affidavit in support of the arrest warrant in that case, the store owner who issued the money orders was able to positively identify one of the defendants as the person who purchased the money orders and that helped solve the PD's identity theft case.  Now, could you imagine if we were actually able to find out how the two payments on the fraudulent boat loan were made?  Check out what some good old fashioned investigating will get you...

Cashiers Check 1

And...

Cashiers Check 2

NICE!  You have to wonder though, does the PD have these money orders?  Surely if they did they would have traced where they were purchased from, gone over there and interviewed who ever issued the checks right?  PUHLEEZE!  Even worse, do you think Detective Baluja (while he was the lead on the mortgage fraud case) even checked into this case?  We'll discuss tomorrow, we've gone way over our daily quota of FAIL!