The House That Wasn’t For Sale

The Burbank homeowner woke up on an ordinary Tuesday morning in early 2024, made his coffee, and checked his mail. Among the usual bills and advertisements was an envelope that would shatter his understanding of property ownership in America. Inside: documentation that his $1.5 million house—the one he was still living in—had been sold to someone he’d never met, financed with a loan he’d never applied for, and processed through an escrow he’d never authorized.

Somewhere across Los Angeles County, a man named Basil Tikriti was about to become the subject of a federal manhunt.

The Architect of Deception

Basil Tikriti, 54, had made Marina del Rey his home—a fitting choice for someone who would later be accused of navigating the murky waters between legitimate real estate transactions and outright theft. Marina del Rey, with its forest of luxury high-rises overlooking manufactured harbors, has always attracted those who understand that value can be created from nothing, that with the right paperwork and sufficient confidence, reality itself becomes negotiable.

Tikriti was not the ringleader of what federal prosecutors would later describe as an audacious real estate fraud. That distinction belonged to Glenis Cardona, a 63-year-old licensed real estate broker from Highland who operated Golden Escrow, with offices in Downey and Sherman Oaks. But according to the federal complaint filed on January 30, 2024, Tikriti played perhaps the most crucial role: he was the face of the lie, the man who walked into offices and signed documents while pretending to be someone else entirely.

The Machinery of Fraud

The scheme that unfolded in late 2023 and January 2024 reads like a masterclass in the vulnerabilities of America’s real estate system. At its heart was a simple but devastating concept: if you can forge the right paperwork and control the right chokepoints in a transaction, you can sell someone’s house without their knowledge—and walk away with nearly a million dollars in the process.

Cardona, through her position as a licensed broker and escrow operator, provided the legitimate infrastructure the scheme required. Her company, Golden Escrow, became the vehicle through which the fraudulent transaction would be processed. She obtained the necessary reports to evaluate whether the Burbank property carried liens or legal judgments—standard due diligence that would, ironically, help the conspirators steal the property more efficiently.

The mechanics were elaborate. Working alongside Ivan Reyes, 50, of Van Nuys, and Arshak Akopyan, 46, of Northridge (who also went by “John Akopyan”), the group created what amounted to a parallel reality. In their version of events, the Burbank homeowner wanted to sell his property. In their version, a buyer—whose identity they had also stolen—wanted to purchase it.

Reyes and Akopyan served as mortgage brokers, the legitimate face presented to lenders. They prepared and submitted loan applications that appeared routine: a buyer seeking financing to purchase a $1.5 million property, with all the standard documentation in place.

But every document was a lie.

The Performance

Tikriti’s role was perhaps the most audacious: he became both seller and buyer, assuming the stolen identities of both victims. Federal prosecutors allege that he walked into offices, sat across from lenders and title companies, and signed documents as if he owned a house he had never seen, as if he were purchasing a property he had no intention of occupying.

The group prepared false identity cards—sophisticated enough to pass cursory inspection but fabricated nonetheless. They drafted a purchase agreement between parties who had never met. They created a grant deed transferring ownership from someone who didn’t know his property was for sale to someone who didn’t know he was buying it. They prepared a deed of trust securing the fraudulent loan.

Most brazenly, they falsely notarized these documents, adding the veneer of legal authenticity that the American real estate system depends upon to function.

The Money Trail

By January 2024, the impossible had happened: the scheme worked. A legitimate lender, presented with what appeared to be standard documentation for a routine transaction, approved and funded a loan for approximately $975,000. The money flowed into the escrow account controlled by Cardona at Golden Escrow.

But the money didn’t stay there long. According to federal prosecutors, Cardona quickly directed the funds to various third-party entities—a laundering process that would allow the conspirators to collect their fraudulently obtained windfall while obscuring the paper trail.

The victims were multiplying. The original homeowner had lost ownership of his property. The identity theft victim whose name appeared on the loan documents was now legally obligated to repay nearly a million dollars for a house he had never wanted to buy. The lender had approved and funded a loan based on fabricated information. The title company had unwittingly insured a fraudulent transaction.

The Unraveling

Real estate fraud of this magnitude creates too many victims to remain hidden indefinitely. Someone—likely the original homeowner—began asking questions that demanded answers. When those answers weren’t forthcoming, law enforcement became involved.

The FBI, working with the Burbank Police Department, began piecing together the conspiracy. Bank records, escrow documents, and witness interviews gradually revealed the scope of the scheme. By early 2024, federal prosecutors in the Central District of California had seen enough.

The Reckoning

On February 11, 2024, three of the four alleged conspirators were arrested. Glenis Cardona, Ivan Reyes, and Arshak Akopyan were taken into custody and scheduled to make their initial appearances that afternoon in United States District Court in Los Angeles.

Basil Tikriti, however, was nowhere to be found.

The man who had allegedly played both seller and buyer, who had walked into offices and assumed identities that weren’t his, had vanished. Federal authorities launched a search, but Tikriti remained at large as his co-conspirators faced the initial stages of the federal criminal justice system.

The Stakes

The charges, while not detailed in court documents, carry serious consequences. Federal prosecutors indicated that if convicted, each defendant would face a statutory maximum sentence of 30 years in federal prison—a reflection of the serious nature of the allegations and the multiple federal crimes potentially involved.

Assistant United States Attorney Kelly Larocque of the Transnational Organized Crime Section was assigned to prosecute the case, suggesting that federal authorities viewed this as more than an isolated incident of real estate fraud.

The Human Cost

Beyond the legal proceedings and potential prison sentences lies a more fundamental question: how does someone recover from having their house sold out from under them? The Burbank homeowner’s ordeal represents a nightmare scenario in American property ownership—the discovery that the legal systems designed to protect property rights can be subverted by those who understand their vulnerabilities.

For the identity theft victim who suddenly found himself legally obligated to repay a massive mortgage, the fraud created a different but equally devastating problem. Credit reports, legal obligations, and financial responsibilities had been created in his name without his knowledge or consent.

The lender faced its own losses—nearly a million dollars in loan proceeds that had been obtained through deception. The title company confronted the possibility of massive claims against insurance policies that had been issued based on fraudulent information.

The Larger Pattern

The Tikriti case reflects broader vulnerabilities in American real estate transactions. Despite decades of technological advancement and regulatory oversight, the system still depends heavily on paper documents, notarized signatures, and trust between parties who may never meet face-to-face.

Escrow companies, mortgage brokers, and title insurers process thousands of transactions annually, creating pressure to complete deals quickly rather than scrutinize every document exhaustively. Licensed professionals like Cardona occupy positions of trust that, when abused, can facilitate fraud on a massive scale.

The Search Continues

As of the February 11, 2024 arrests, Basil Tikriti remained at large, somewhere in Los Angeles County or beyond. Federal marshals and FBI agents continued their search for the man who allegedly played the starring role in a fraud that demonstrated how easily America’s real estate system could be exploited.

The Marina del Rey high-rises where Tikriti had lived continued their eternal watch over the artificial harbors below, monuments to the power of human ambition to create value from nothing. But somewhere in those towers or in cities beyond, a man was learning that some illusions cannot be sustained indefinitely.

In Burbank, a homeowner was fighting to reclaim ownership of his own house. In federal court, three defendants were beginning to confront the consequences of an alleged conspiracy that had generated nearly a million dollars in fraudulent proceeds. And in the offices of the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, investigators continued building cases that would determine whether the American promise of secure property ownership could withstand the ingenuity of those who would subvert it.

The house that had been sold without its owner’s knowledge stood as a monument to a different kind of American dream—one where reality itself could be negotiated, where identities could be assumed like costumes, and where the right paperwork could transfer ownership of anything. Until, inevitably, someone began asking the right questions.