Trusted criminals conceal and fragment: a forensic linguistics case study of subprime mortgage fraud in South Africa

Abstract

The aim behind this novel autoethnographic case study, which was conducted retrospectively, was to explore ways in which forensic linguistics could assist me make sense of my experiences as an unwitting victim of a crime known as subprime mortgage fraud. It sheds light on the fraud script used by a specific syndicate in South Africa, to realise their profit motif. Due to its dual nature, the study tries to strike a balance between the linguistic and criminological demands of the investigation. From the forensic linguistic side of the equation linguistic tricksters employed discourse patterns, linguistic structures, vocabulary and lexical choices, grammar, semantics, etc. which presented as a cocktail of deceptive speech acts (e.g. vague language, eloquent silence; othering discourses, empty promises, distancing, etc.). These were exposed by using conversation, content, document, critical discourse analyses, among others. From a criminological standpoint, over and above the documented strategies of loan steering, phantom help, social engineering, concealment, fragmentation, conversion, etc.; this study unearths a ‘bite and blow’ (i.e. two-faced behaviour showing kindness on the outside while secretly acting out bad intentions); ‘pacifying’ or ‘lulling’ (e.g. the issuing of false fines); a ‘soft-landing yet illegal eviction’ of victims, etc.; all culminating in a unique scapegoating strategy with a shape-shifting and/or catfishing twist (e.g. the ‘unknown’ conveyancer who turned out to have been my former financial advisor all along); all of which served to conceal the deceptive behaviour. To highlight the case’s uniquely South African flavour the investigation employed several tools of the trade (e.g. network analysis, criminal profiling, the follow-the-money strategy, inductive reasoning; inferencing, the ‘but for’ test, etc.); key among these being the Aquilian delictual liability concept. The case study was also pitted against a handful of judicial opinions dealing with pure economic loss. The findings suggest the subprime mortgage fraud the study sought to expose and hopefully dismantle, is but a symptom of a bigger and more ominous well-oiled and under-the-radar machinery demanding urgent transnational cooperation. This is a thriving shadow economy facilitated by organised crime, while lubricated by corruption and other partners in crime, which are currently bringing the entire African continent and South Africa in particular, to their knees. While a lot of effort has been invested in ensuring the highest level of rigour possible; confronting the study’s limitations and the implications thereof, for future investigations, means acknowledging that all that this investigation can ultimately lay claim to, is the provision of a basis for a testable set of propositions by which a body of theory about organised economic crime (and by default subprime mortgage fraud), could be assembled.