RAPAPORT...  A federal grand jury for the U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of California, returned a 44-count indictment against two men from the Sacramento area. The indictment includes charges of wire fraud, identity theft and money laundering, the latter related to the purchase of millions of dollars in gold that one suspect took to Lebanon. It alleges that Christopher Jared Warren, 26, of Folsom, California, and Scott Edward Cavell, 27, of Sacrameto, used their mortgage brokerage, Triduanum Financial, to steal more than $7 million during December 2008 and January of this year by misrepresenting themselves to a mortgage lender in Florida. Warren and Cavell allegedly approved mortgages, but instead of funding the mortgages and recording the deeds, money wired by the Florida lender went directly into the men's own accounts.

The money laundering charges stem from those cash transactions, and they describe how the men redirected millions of dollars to gold bullion dealers, rare coin dealers, a Swedish bank account, a jewelry company and others, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. The indictment also charges Warren and Cavell with stealing the identities of two men to fraudulently obtain true passports in their names.

Warren is in custody after having been apprehended in February at the U.S.-Canada border. Cavell is still at large and is believed to have fled the country. "The scope and brazenness of the criminal conduct carried out by these two mortgage brokers over just two months astounds," said Lawrence Brown, acting U.S. attorney, in his remarks on the indictment and the search warrant affidavit. "In coordination with multiple federal, state and local agencies, we are doing everything we can to attack this epidemic of fraud that has contributed to the financial meltdown afflicting our region and the nation," he added.




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