This Arizona criminal actually hatched a pretty clever scheme.
Nathan Lucas Underwood attempted to have a realtor sell an apartment belonging to Nathan Lucas Underwood. The only problem, it was a different Nathan Lucas Underwood.
Are we confused yet?
Here's AZ Family News:
Nathan Lucas Underwood posed as the owner and stole the spare key for the condo near Scottsdale Road on Rancho Vista Drive, north of Camelback Road, on April 17, after walking to the concierge office and showing the worker his Arizona ID, police said.
Court documents said the worker gave Underwood the key because Underwood's ID matched the name of the owner ...
Two days later, Underwood met with a real estate agent at the condo to try to sell it. The agent said Underwood reached out via Zillow in late February and told the agent a 'crazy' story about how he acquired an LLC and the condo, court records said.
Police said Underwood tried to sell the condo for $1.3 million even though it was worth up to $1.6 million since he wanted to sell quickly.
He had the name, he got the key.
Underwood was well on his way to a million-plus sale.
But the real owner discovered something was up when the hired cleaning crew was unable to enter the condo because the key held by the concierge office was missing.
Investigators said the real owner flew out to Arizona on April 27 and saw that dozens of clothing items and decorative items worth about $14,000 had been stolen.
He also said he got a FedEx package from a title company as a fraud-prevention move, alerting him that someone was trying to sell his condo.
He reported what happened April 28 to police.
Somehow, nothing happened to the man who tried this scam for months.
It wasn't until he returned at the beginning of this month to make a second run at selling the apartment that police stepped in.
Security staff recognized he was not the real owner and photographed his ID.
When officers talked to the real estate agent, they said they got Underwood's phone number and a description of his car.
Police said they learned he lived in north-central Phoenix and tracked him down to a Bank of America Monday at Tatum and Shea boulevards. He was arrested as he was leaving, and police said he had a meth pipe in his pocket.
What a shocker.
Underwood gave the police quite a defense during his interview when he told them: "I'm not doing fraud. I, I get it. It looks like I am very much."
Police determined he was doing fraud and charged him accordingly.
Underwood was booked into jail on felony charges of fraudulent schemes, second-degree burglary and aggravated taking the identity of another person.
