The leader of an identity theft ring that operates on the dark web has claimed responsibility for the attempted scam foreclosure auction of Elvis Presley's Graceland.
The scam was laid out in an email exchange between the Nigeria-based scammer and the New York Times.
The identity thief told the paper that his ring preys on "the dead, the unsuspecting and the elderly."
How Does The Nigerian Scam Work?
They use birth certificates and other documents with personal information to develop their scheme.
The scammer says they came up with an idea to target the estate of Lisa Marie Presley, who died last year.
In September, a mysterious company named Naussany Investments and Private Lending LLC filed papers in a California court for what it claimed was a multi-million dollar debt from a loan Presley had taken out in 2018 with Graceland as collateral.
Naussany Investments said it would settle for $2.85 million from the Presley family trust.
But the trust, led by Riley Keough, Lisa Marie Presley's daughter, didn't think the debt was legitimate.
Naussany Investments claimed it had the right to auction off Graceland and took out an ad in a Memphis paper giving notice that it planned the auction.
Keough fought the foreclosure and a judge put the auction on hold.
No one from the company was at the court hearing.
Naussany Investments then quickly appeared to give up on the plan.
Mark A. Sunderman, a real estate professor at the University of Memphis said the scammers picked the wrong property because of its fame.
"If this had not been such a high-profile piece of property, they might have gotten away with it," Sunderman told the New York Times.
