Elvis Graceland foreclosure sale ‘was a plot by Nigerian scammer’

The mysterious company behind a plot to sell Graceland out from under Elvis Presley’s family claims to be a Nigerian scam ringleader. Bizarre emails written in a Ugandan language claimed the ring targeted ‘gullible’ Americans, but the music icon’s family ‘beat me at my own game’.

The emails came from Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC, which came out of the woodwork last week to claim the King of Rock’s daughter Lisa Marie Presley owed it $3.8 million.

But the effort was thwarted in Chancery Court in Memphis by Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins after Elvis’ granddaughter Riley Keough , 34, applied for an injunction. After DailyMail.com emailed an address in a court filing by ‘Gregory Naussany’ afterwards, he said the attempt to sell Graceland was being called off.

What Naussany was and what really happened remained a mystery as no trace of it could be found in the real world – no phone numbers worked, all dresses were PO boxes, and nothing was registered anywhere. Then the New York Times got reply from gregoryenaussanyniplflorida@hotmail.com, the address in the court filing, claiming the whole thing was an elaborate scam. ‘I am the one who creates trouble,’ the self-confessed scammer began the first of two emails on Friday. He claimed to be the head of a scammer network that preyed on dead people, the elderly, and otherwise unsuspecting Americans.

The birth certificates and other identity documents of ‘gullible’ marks, mostly living in California and Florida, were mined for details to make the scams successful. ‘We figure out how to steal. That’s what we do,’ the scammer posing as Naussany admitted. ‘I had fun figuring this one out and it didn’t succeed very well.’ The scammer admitted they had been found out and the game was up, complimenting Keough on defeating them. ‘Yo client dont have nothing to worries… win fir her,’ they wrote. ‘She beat me at my own game.’

Seasoned lawyers and real estate experts were stunned by the ruse, one calling it ‘extremely unusual to the point of being unbelievable’. ‘They picked the wrong piece of property,’ University of Memphis real estate professor Mark Sunderman told the newspaper. ‘If this had not been such a high-profile piece of property, they might have gotten away with it.’ The NYT wrote that the emails raised more questions, and the veracity of the claims were difficult to determine. Whenever it tried to clarify details about the ruse, it was told ‘you don’t have to understand’, and the scammer never specified why they were owning up.

Translators said the Luganda, a Bantu language spoken in Uganda, in the emails was ‘clunky’ – even though the English in court documents was near-perfect. The court filing was also faxed to the court Chancery Court in Shelby County, Tennessee, from a toll-free American number. The FBI is believed to be investigating the case and is ‘interested’ in launching a criminal probe into the attempted sale. The bizarre saga began in September when Naussany began hounding Keough, claiming her mother, who died last year, put up Graceland as collateral in the 2015 loan and failed to pay by the due date in 2022.

Keough refused to pay, so it offered a a $2.8 million ‘reduced’ settlement and filed a collection claim in a Los Angeles court. That didn’t work either. Naussany responded by taking out a classified ad in a local Memphis newspaper announcing it would hold the foreclosure sale on the steps of a Memphis courthouse on May 23, when Graceland would be sold to the ‘best and highest bidder’. Keough’s lawyer Jeff Germany unraveled the web of lies in court, outlining the ‘significant serious allegations regarding the authenticity’ of the documents. Keough’s suit said Kurt Naussany sent her numerous emails seeking to collect on her mom’s supposed debt, attaching a standard promissory note and a 2018 deed of trust for Graceland, both bearing Lisa Marie’s signature. The fishy papers produced by Naussany included a deed of trust notarized by Kimberly Philbrick, a notary in Duval County, Florida, who insisted she had ‘never met Lisa Marie nor notarized any document for her’. ‘I don’t know why my signature appears on this document,’ she wrote in an affidavit.

The wording on the deed of trust also included an incongruous reference to ‘online notarization’ which wasn’t authorized in Florida or mentioned in Duval County paperwork until 2020 – two years after the deed was supposedly drawn up. ‘While the documents bear signatures that look like the signatures of Lisa Marie Presley , Lisa Marie Presley did not in fact sign the documents,’ the suit insisted. ‘The purported note and deed of trust are products of fraud and those individuals who were involved in the creation of such documents are believed to be guilty of the crime of forgery.’ Documents sent via mail by Naussany included the return address of a UPS store in Jacksonville. A Missouri address was, likewise, a PO Box. When DailyMail.com rang the phone number listed in Kurt Naussany’s contact details the line was not in service. Germany’s version of events went completely unchallenged – because nobody for Naussany showed up to Shelby County Chancery Court to argue against him.

In fact, he told the court he had had ‘no contact’ whatsoever with Nassauny, any lawyers acting on its behalf, or from its supposed boss Kurt Naussany. It is not known what relationship Kurt and Gregory Nassauny have. Chancellor Jenkins told Wednesday’s hearing that his office had received an overnight application from someone calling himself Gregory Naussany asking for an extension of time. ‘It appears to be a one-page facsimile,’ he told the proceedings: ‘The court will deny the request.’ The document called Keough’s claims ‘unfounded’ and not warranting an injunction, asking for an opportunity to present a defense. But when contacted by the email on the filing, Nassauny said he was ‘withdrawing all claims with prejudice’, meaning they couldn’t be brought up again.

‘Due to the deed of trust not being recorded and the loan being obtained in different state, legal action would have to be filed in multiple states and Naussany Investments & Private Lending will not acquire to proceed,’ he wrote in the email. ‘That comes from consultation of the lawyers for the company. There was no harm meant on Ms. Keough for her mothers LMP mis habits and mis managing of money (sic).’ Asked to clarify whether he was abandoning all efforts to pursue the supposed $3.8 million he claims to have loaned the late Lisa Marie Presley, Nassauny said in a follow up: ‘Per counsel it’s in the best interest as multiple filings would have to be filed in 3 different states. The company will no longer comment.’ According to the FBI’s 2022 Internet Crime Report, some 11,827 individuals in the US were victims of property fraud — a tiny percentage of the 87 million homeowners in the US — but the numbers are growing.

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