Bay Area rapper Kafani is in some serious trouble with the law. If authorities are to be believed, Kafani was the leader of a multimillion-dollar scam that defrauded at least seven California residents. A report made by The Mercury News states that the 39-year-old has been named as a defendant in a federal case along with three others. They stand accused of operating a “wide-ranging fraudulent loan scam that prosecutors said dates back to 2018.”
“In each of the instances being investigated, an unknown subject or subjects stole personal identifying information from the victim, used that information to open a bank account in the victim’s name, and established an email account using the victim’s name,” FBI Special Agent Armando Delgado-Campos stated. “The subjects would then use the victim’s identity to obtain a refinance loan, using the victim’s property as collateral.”
The Mercury News reports that Kafani took to his Instagram to call the allegations “slander” and “bullsh*t.” The rapper insinuated that an ex-girlfriend sent “anonymous tips to FBI and send false emails to try and get you investigated.” He told his followers not to believe everything they read in the news. However, investigators claim that much of their evidence came from the rapper himself after his phone was tapped and they allegedly overheard him planning to steal from an old woman.
One victim reportedly has been tracking fraudulent loans being opened in her name for months, while two others saw that a $325K loan was made in their names and they had no idea how or why. Victims’ identities were used to purchase bars of gold, “including one gold bar order totaling nearly a $1 million from a victim in Beverly Hills.”
Kafani was already on supervised release in connection with a conspiracy to commit wire fraud conviction from 2015. Back in 2013, Kafani was shot multiple times while filming a music video in Oakland and paralyzed. He was arrested and released last week after posting $250K bail.
