[00:00:02] Phil Prazan: Coconut Grove is one of the older neighborhoods in the city.
There’s a specific area historically known as the Black Grove.
Your first thought might be, Well, that’s lovely.
But I hope your next thought would be, Something has gone really wrong here.
The lot had been sold to investors, without anyone even so much as texting or calling her.
It sounds almost impossible.
How can someone buy property that isn’t for sale?
You’ll see how in this two-part episode.
We plucked it from our archives while we work on new episodes of The Perfect Scam.
Here’s part 1.
[00:01:57] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam.
I’m your host Bob Sullivan.
The Grove is a little Bahamian and a little Bohemian.
So valuable that certain kinds of people are attracted to the market.
Local journalist Phil Prazan, of Miami’s NBC affiliate has witnessed the dramatic activity.
[00:02:49] Phil Prazan: South Florida is one of the fraud capitals of the country.
It’s a land of easy money and fast deals.
You get kind of used to all types of weird, strange, unique stories.
He’s seen some really weird, strange property sales coming across his desk.
Someone, or some set of people is trying to sell properties they don’t own to unsuspecting buyers.
So, this is strange.
[00:04:04] Bob: It’s a bold crime selling properties you don’t own.
How is that even possible?
Prazan decides to start pulling on the threads of this story.
Owners who were victims, well, they have no idea any of this is happening.
[00:04:25] Phil Prazan: I was more just curious of how this all worked.
So that was the first one.
And then we started calling all of the phone numbers that were associated with these IDs.
And are you selling?"
And they said, “No, this is, this is not me.
This is a fraud.”
[00:05:13] Bob: As Phil starts to call other potential victims, the conversations become more alarming.
One victim even thinks Phil must be the criminal.
They, they thought that I was the scammer.
They’re like, sure, yeah, yeah.
You know it’s, it’s, this must be some pop in of joke, right?
And then we were just like, “Hey listen.
And then call me back.
Go verify for yourself.
It’s all right there.”
What’s going on?"
[00:06:02] Phil Prazan: Yes, so the original story I did, did not go through.
It was caught at the last minute by the owner and the title insurance company.
Then we notified two others that already happened.
This is no paperwork headache, no joke.
The county website shows there’s a new owner.
And I was like, “You have no idea.
I’ve been down this rabbit hole all the time.
So that’s how I got to the Shirley Gibson case, kind of just covering that similar topic.
[00:07:16] Bob: And that’s how we get to Coconut Grove.
The family has lived there since her great-grandmother immigrated from the Bahamas.
And my grandfather came to this country in 1904 and my great-grandmother came in 1879.
[00:08:01] Shirley Gibson: Yeah, its been in the family over 100 years.
I think that’s the standard lot size in that area.
[00:08:39] Bob: How far away from your empty lot do you live?
[00:08:43] Shirley Gibson: Oh I live about maybe about 30 minutes or 40 minutes away.
Because I still do business in that area.
And I ride by the lots.
[00:09:08] Shirley Gibson: I’m just happy that I still own them.
I own the property.
But over the years when he retired, he started selling them, the houses to Black people.
[00:09:30] Bob: And so yours had a house on it at one point?
[00:09:32] Shirley Gibson: Yeah, yeah, uh-huh.
I lived there for almost 40 years and my father was born there in 1911.
[00:09:41] Bob: Oh wow.
[00:09:42] Shirley Gibson: He lived there until he died in ‘80–, ‘86.
[00:10:03] Bob: Still, the vacant lots mean a lot to Shirley and her family.
They represent generational wealth.
What did, what did, what was that like?
How did that feel?
And then she spoke to her supervisor, and they came up with a fraud, fraudulent warranty deed.
And I said I did not sign that.
[00:11:13] Bob: I’ve seen a copy of this deed.
It sure looks real.
She calls one attorney she knows.
It turns out that’s the best thing that happened to Shirley on this dark day.
[00:12:21] Bob: Mr. Winker is lawyer David Winker, the source who knows journalist Phil Prazan.
David is in the neighborhood that night for a meeting.
He’s been helping with West Grove legal issues for years.
Um, she’s very with it.
She has a great mind, and former librarian, retired librarian, and she wasn’t acting normal.
And I was like, what is wrong?
And she said, “Something terrible happened to me today.
I’ll have to tell you about it afterwards.”
“There must be some mistake.
I haven’t paid the taxes.”
“Well they’ve been paid.”
And they gave her a copy of the fake deed, right, the fraudulent deed.
They were just like, good luck old lady.
[00:13:54] David Winker: Shirley is like a really important person.
So we would bring her in to speak to things, to educate us as to things.
And honestly, you know, like she had the wherewithal to go after, to fight back.
Does that make sense, like she, you know, they, they messed with the wrong lady.
When you need law enforcement, you need law enforcement.
And she’s looking at me like, what?
You know, Shirley Gibson in block letters.
And I wanted to show the cop from the beginning like this is so clearly fraud.
And the police take a report.
Still, that’s not going to get Shirley her property back.
Someone made money, a lot of money off the sale of Shirley’s property.
[00:16:32] David Winker: I immediately called the company that had closed the loan.
We’re being told this is a fraud.”
The land she grew up on, that her father grew up on.
And Shirley never received so much as a phone call or a text message.
Meanwhile, as David starts to research the legal options, Shirley makes another shocking discovery.
That lot is not her only lot the criminals are targeting.
[00:17:54] Shirley Gibson: Yes.
And he’s a friend of, of David’s.
And that’s how I found out about the other piece of property.
Is that what happened?
[00:18:15] Shirley Gibson: Yes, it’s on uh, Zillow.
[00:18:17] Bob: Yeah.
So what do you think now?
Do you feel like you’re being attacked by these criminals who are trying to steal your properties?
[00:18:25] Shirley Gibson: Yes.
I, I do.
I, I am a little upset about it.
But then I said, it’s fortunate that it happened to me because I jumped on it immediately.
[00:18:38] Bob: David is scrambling to help Shirley at this point.
But she is surprisingly calm about the whole thing.
you might hear it in Shirley’s voice even now.
I would be sick to my stomach if, if I saw something like that happen to me.
[00:18:56] Shirley Gibson: Well, I’m a calm person.
[00:18:59] Bob: Calmer than me (chuckles).
[00:19:02] Shirley Gibson: And I leave it in the hands of an higher authority.
He decides he needs to see to it the theft of Shirley’s property gets the attention it deserves.
So he reaches out to Phil Prazan, the TV journalist.
And that’s when the size of the problem starts to come into focus.
So yeah, does she want to talk?
So and he said, of course.
Yeah, I said, “David, this is way bigger than Shirley Gibson.”
You know, this is happening.
And Shirley Gibson was just one of them.
[00:20:01] Bob: But with Shirley’s story, this crime wave has gone one step farther.
It’s become far more serious.
So Phil takes a camera crew to West Grove to meet Shirley at her property.
Well, the property that is supposed to be hers.
She doesn’t raise her voice; she just speaks matter of factly.
And this is, these are the steps that we’re taking next.
I got the impression like she had, you know, seen a thing or two in her day.
[00:21:16] Phil Prazan: Absolutely.
The vast majority of victims are Black families.
[00:21:39] Phil Prazan: Coconut Grove is one of the older neighborhoods in the city.
[00:23:26] Bob: So, Phil and Shirley go public with the story.
It topped the news on May 17th.
…that is part of an increase in that bang out of crime.
NBC 6 investigators have covered since the pandemic began.
NBC 6 investigator Phil Prazan has this latest case.
We’ve reported on these vacant lot scams several times this spring.
This deal actually went through, and it is a pain for those involved.
This vacant lot in Coconut Grove has been in Shirley Gibson’s family her entire life.
She intended to pass it onto her niece and nephew.
So that Blacks will have some property in West Grove.
For me, it’s been disturbing.
I’m distraught from all of this, that I have to fight to keep my property.
[00:24:20] Bob: Does Shirley get her land back?
What happens to the $230,000 that someone got paid selling her property?
And what about the other 50 victims?
And what happens to the criminals and to the neighborhood, and could this happen to you?
That’s next week on The Perfect Scam.
Call the AARP Fraud Watch web connection Helpline at 877-908-3360.
Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next.
That address again is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org.
Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
For AARP’s The Perfect Scam, I’m Bob Sullivan.
END OF TRANSCRIPT
Miamis historic West Grove neighborhood has recently become a hot real estate market.
So hot, in fact, that it has attracted the attention of scammers.
It wasnt always so.
Now in her 80s, Shirley had hoped to pass on the property to her niece and nephew.
