Dark Web Identity Thief Claims He Orchestrated Scheme to Sell Graceland
A dark web scammer has taken credit for trying to sell Elvis Presley’s Graceland home, The New York Times reports.
The paper said it received two emails from a person who claimed to be the brains behind this scheme and other identity theft frauds. “We figure out how to steal. That’s what we do,” the scammer said, adding that he and his dark web network of “worms” often targeted elderly and unsuspecting people, often in California and Florida, using publicly available documents like birth certificates to procure crucial personal information.
More from Rolling Stone
Graceland Foreclosure Sale Stopped After Riley Keough Alleges Wild Fraud Scheme
'Under the Bridge' Examines a True Crime From Every Viewpoint - Except the One That Matters
'Sasquatch Sunset': What's Hairy, Horny, and Puts Its Best Bigfoot Forward?
Still, he acknowledged the Graceland grift had fallen short: “I had fun figuring this one out and it didn’t succeed very well.”
The Times said it received the messages after reaching out to an email address listed in court documents for Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC, the company that tried to sell Graceland at auction earlier this month. The writer said he was based in Nigeria, and his emails were written in Luganda. A translator who looked at the documents noted that the use of the Bantu language was sporadically clunky compared to the fluent English used in Naussany’s court filings.
The grift began when Naussany claimed that Elvis’ late daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, had put up the deed to the mansion as collateral for a $3.8 million loan. Naussany tried to settle that debt last year, aiming to collect $2.85 million from the Presley family trust, now overseen by Lisa Marie’s daughter, Riley Keough.
Keough, however, was skeptical of the demand, prompting Naussany to give notice of the auction. Keough then successfully sued to stop the sale, claiming that her mother’s signatures had been forged and that Naussany was “a false entity created for the purpose of defrauding” the Presley trust.
Nobody representing Naussany appeared at the court hearings last week, but there was a last-minute filing brought by a person claiming to be Gregory E. Naussany, asking for more time to prepare a defense (it included the comically long email address [email protected] for further contact). Not long after, though, The Associated Press received a statement (sent by a Naussany-connected email listed in court docs) saying it would not go forward with the case.
In his emails to The Times, the scammer appeared to give credit to Keough, saying: “Yo client dont have nothing to worries, win fir her… She beat me at my own game.”
Last week, after the Graceland auction was halted, the Tennessee attorney general, Jonathan Skrmetti, said he was opening an investigation into Naussany. In response to the emails sent to The Times, the AG’s office said it was aware of the letters and said it would “continue looking into the matter.”
Best of Rolling Stone