Once the loans were approved, Ortiz and Santillan used bank accounts affiliated with fake businesses they created to receive the dispersed funds at the closing of each sale. The sellers of the properties were paid, and the remaining loan funds—millions of dollars over the lifetime of the scam—eventually found their way into the pockets of Ortiz and Santillan.

“Which caused big problems for the straw buyers,” said Hawkins. “Since the loans were in the names of the buyers, and Ortiz and Santillan had never intended to hold up their end of the bargain to make the mortgage payments, the loans eventually went into default.”

The complex investigation included interviews with straw buyers and victim lending institutions, and a very close look at Ortiz’s and Santillan’s extensive business and personal financial records. “Both had lived the high life for a few years but burned through the money they had stolen,” said Hawkins.

Ortiz and Santillan were indicted in October 2014. Santillan pleaded guilty to the conspiracy in September 2016 and was sentenced to 14 years in prison and ordered to pay $5.4 million in restitution. And Ortiz, who may have feared a similar fate, decided to flee just before his April 2017 sentencing.

But on August 24, 2017—approximately four months after he fled to Mexico—he turned himself in to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.

According to Hawkins, Ortiz told FBI agents in Mexico City that he went to Mexico to finish some sort of software project that he said would make a lot of money for his family. “But more likely,” said Hawkins, “Ortiz turned himself in to the U.S. Embassy because he missed his family in Kingwood, Texas, and was desperate to reconnect with them.”

And in March 2018, back in front of the same federal judge, Ortiz got an additional year and a day tacked on to his already lengthy prison term.