Was attempted Graceland foreclosure all a scam out of Nigeria? Here's everything we know

Graceland has always been a pilgrimage for tourists from around the world looking to pay homage to the late Elvis Presley.

But, recently, the King’s estate in Memphis has been less a mecca for pop culture and more for the bizarre.

An attempted foreclosure auction due to an alleged loan taken out by Lisa Marie Presley from the mysterious Naussany Investments and Private Lending. A lawsuit filed by Graceland owner Riley Keough claiming the foreclosure attempt was a fraud and that documents had been falsified. And now, emails in multiple languages sent to various media outlets claiming to be from the person behind the scam.

"The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office is aware of the email from someone purporting to be Gregory Naussany that says, essentially, that he is a scammer from Nigeria. We will continue looking into the matter of the failed attempt to foreclose on the iconic Graceland, beloved home of Elvis Presley," said Amy Lannom Wilhite, Tennessee Attorney General director of communications, in an email Wednesday.

Here is the latest on the investigation into Naussany, the lawsuit against the entity and the emails from the alleged scammer.

What are the next legal steps regarding the attempted Graceland foreclosure?

For starters, the foreclosure was halted after a hearing in Shelby County Chancery Court on May 22. Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins ruled the pending foreclosure sale could not proceed.

On May 24, Memphis-based law firm Morton & Germany — which is representing Keough (the late Lisa Marie Presley's daughter) and The Promenade Trust — filed the court-ordered injunction bond following the May 22 hearing. The order stopped the foreclosure sale and maintains the restraining order filed by Keough and The Promenade Trust, which controls the Graceland estate, regarding the sale and fraudulent claims in the lawsuit.

Representatives from Morton & Germany told The Commercial Appeal no further litigation or hearings are scheduled regarding the case. That is in result of May 22's hearing and the arrival of a pending investigation from the offices of Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. On May 23, Skrmetti formally announced his offices would begin looking into a fraud case regarding Naussany Investments' claims on Graceland.

Did Naussany Investments admit attempted Graceland foreclosure was a scam?

There's been no shortage of twists and turns regarding the Graceland foreclosure case and alleged representatives from Naussany Investments.

The initial lawsuit filed by Keough's legal team mentions two persons affiliated with the company: Kurt Naussany and Carolyn Williams. At the beginning of May 22's hearing, a Gregory Naussany came into the fold, first filing a request to delay the court hearing. That request was denied by the court.

After the hearing, the alleged Gregory Naussany emailed The Commercial Appeal and claimed to drop the foreclosure case. Despite the claim, the Shelby County Chancery Clerk's office confirmed it had received no correspondence from the company since the hearing ended the morning of May 22. As of Wednesday, May 29, the court has still not received any correspondence from Naussany Investments.

The email was riddled with grammatical errors and the alleged Gregory Naussany sent The Commercial Appeal a follow-up email claiming Kurt Naussany was no longer affiliated with the company and had not been since 2015. In addition, the emails received from Gregory Naussany came from a Hotmail account.

GRACELAND HISTORY: Graceland felt like 'a twilight zone' when it opened in 1982. Now it's more like a home

The two other emails associated with the company are Outlook accounts and are both listed in the lawsuit filed by Morton & Germany. The email for Carolyn Williams contained three "Ls" instead of two in "LLC."

After the emergence of Gregory Naussany, the email associated with Kurt Naussany contacted The Commercial Appeal on Saturday, May 25. This email from the alleged Kurt Naussany came after a "please do not contact any further request" from the user.

The email from Kurt Naussany to The Commercial Appeal was written in Spanish. Using Google Translate, the email states:

"To all the press I am the Yahoo Ring Leader of Nigeria. I have Google worms in the United States, the Presly is all made up and a hoax, my ring preys on the dead and the elderly for money, we make things up by finding things on the Intanet to scam US citizens out of money, this It's something invented to get my worms to get money. As you know, we Nigerian Yahoos have been doing this for many years. We steal US birth and death certificates, hack into people's accounts, make up addresses, steal identities, search everything and hack all kinds of records. We hurt innocent people who don't know that we took their identity and used innocent people's names to do it. my ring has failed in this matr. We have stolen millions from you Americans, you blind fools. We move on to the next project and continue drinking. a press threat and we sit and laugh at you idiots and watch you make fools of yourself. Come find us in Nigeria."

In the email signature there is a request to translate the message from Nigerian to English to understand (it is written in Spanish), along with contact information for the Hotmail address associated with Gregory Naussany.

On May 28, the New York Times reported receiving a similar email from Naussany Investments, however some details differed. The New York Times reported the alleged Naussany Investments representative claimed to be a "ring leader on the dark web" and that the ring preyed on the elderly and deceased, "especially those from Florida and California." Additionally, the email the New York Times received was written in Luganda, a Bantu language spoken in Uganda, according to the report.

Other media outlets, including the Daily Memphian, reported receiving an email from the same account, however the message details differ. In the email sent to the Daily Memphian, the outlet reported the message was written in English and Ganda (also a dialect from Uganda) and claims to have "worms in AZ."

What will happen next in the Graceland / Naussany Investments case?

At this stage, no additional hearings are confirmed regarding the foreclosure case. With the Tennessee Attorney General's office looking into the fraud case, any additional news at this stage is likely to come from that investigation.

On Tuesday, The Commercial Appeal contacted the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation regarding the case. TBI communications director Josh Devine said the TBI has not received any requests from the District Attorney General in Shelby County, which would be the mechanism for the TBI to open an investigation.

The Shelby County District Attorney General's office has not returned request for comment.

When asked about Shelby County involvement or the process of partnering with local and state agencies for the investigation, the Tennessee Attorney General's office did not provide additional information or comment at this time.

The Tennessee Attorney General's office did provide additional resources for consumer safety regarding real estate scams.

Neil Strebig is a journalist with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at [email protected], 901-426-0679 or via X/Twitter, @neilStrebig. 

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Was attempted Graceland sale a scam out of Nigeria? The latest updates