Archive Episode: Miami Property Scammers, Part 2
The Perfect Scam
AARP
4.5 • 980 Ratings
🗓️ 28 March 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this 2021 episode, when Shirley Gibson learns that her property in Miami’s historic West Grove neighborhood has been sold by someone using a forged deed, she is determined to fight. Working together with journalist Phil Prazen and lawyer David Winker, they uncover an elaborate real estate scam targeting dozens of elderly property owners in this historically Black neighborhood. Law enforcement is soon on the trail of the criminals, but will Shirley get her land back?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This week on The Perfect Scam. |
| 0:05.1 | Well, it's prime property, and if I don't want to sell it, then they'll try to take it, and that's what they did. |
| 0:11.9 | That's what stood out to me. It's just like nobody ever checked if this was a real person. |
| 0:20.0 | Welcome back to the perfect scam. |
| 0:21.9 | I'm your host, Bob Sullivan. |
| 0:24.4 | When we left our story last week, Shirley Gibson was fighting to save a small slice of |
| 0:29.4 | property, her child at home, land that her family had owned in South Florida for more than |
| 0:34.1 | a hundred years. |
| 0:35.5 | She's just learned the property was sold without her knowledge |
| 0:38.8 | to an investment firm in New York. A criminal impersonated her, but the land up for sale and managed |
| 0:44.7 | to sell it for $230,000. As Shirley works with a lawyer and friend named David Winker to reclaim |
| 0:52.0 | her property, she finds out that dozens of other families |
| 0:55.1 | in her largely African-American neighborhood have suffered the same fate. Fortunately, the 80-year-old |
| 1:01.7 | retired librarian has been a community organizer for a long time, and she knows how to put up a fight. |
| 1:07.7 | As we rejoin the story, Shirley is about to go public with her situation. She's |
| 1:12.4 | told her story to local journalist Phil Prasen, and everyone learns just how widespread the problem |
| 1:18.4 | is. Will Shirley get her land back? And what about those other victims? What can you do to protect |
| 1:23.9 | yourself from this kind of crime? That's what you'll learn in today's conclusion of our |
| 1:28.0 | story. We plucked it from our archives while we work on new episodes of The Perfect Scamp. |
| 1:32.8 | We begin with Phil's story airing on NBC's local TV channel. |
| 1:43.5 | This week when she went to pay her taxes on it, she discovered the lot was no longer in her name. |
| 1:49.0 | A New York developer, Ali Development LLC, bought the lot for $230,000. |
... |
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