11/02/2025
FROM THE QUEENS CHRONICLE- 2012
Did Ahmad live lavishly by conning his own people?
Real estate broker allegedly made millions by victimizing immigrants
Some Guyanese immigrants have found themselves losing money or their homes after becoming entangled in an alleged $50 million mortgage fraud plot by an Ozone Park real estate broker. He was reportedly living lavishly, throwing big parties and driving an expensive car, while his victims suffered.
Edul Ahmad, 41, who has reportedly accumulated $20 million in liquid assets from his multiple businesses, is under federal indictment. He allegedly used straw buyers to defraud banks out of millions, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. Ahmad is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud and 10 counts of bank fraud. He faces 30 years in prison, if convicted.
Ahmad, the owner of Century 21 Ahmad Realty, also allegedly recruited cricket players from his native country of Guyana to work for him in furtherance of his crimes.
Dilip Nath, the president of the New American Voters Association, a nonprofit group that works to increase political awareness and voter education in new immigrant communities across the city, said these groups must be particularly careful to avoid becoming involved with people like Ahmad.
“It’s always challenging for new immigrants when they come into the community,” Nath said. “They don’t know the way things work, the pros and cons of the business or who they can trust, and unfortunately they get taken advantage of.”
Nath said sometimes immigrants are more trusting and feel more comfortable doing business with people from a common culture, but there are those like Ahmad, who prey on that trust.
“It’s a sin that these people had their hard-earned money taken away,” Nath said. “I hope there is some way they can get it back.”
Nath said his group has no way of knowing if a business is legitimate or not, and they do not recommend any particular establishments to their members. However, if they did find out that someone was defrauding the community, the organization would make the information public.
Seema Agnani, executive director of Chhaya, a Jackson Heights-based housing organization that specializes in helping South Asians, said some of her foreclosure clients had taken out loans through Ahmad.
“Unfortunately these types of scams are common across all ethnic groups, not just the Guyanese community,” Agnani said. “This is an extreme case in that it was an elaborate scheme that he had going.”
Agnani recalled how one of the group’s clients was cheated by Ahmad. The man was referred to the real estate broker by his priest who was in cahoots with Ahmad, Agnani said. He got a mortgage with 100 percent financing.
“He was in a dire situation and he wanted someone he could trust to help him,” Agnani said. “Instead, he got a mortgage he couldn’t afford and came to us in default.”
Chhaya helped the man avoid foreclosure and saved him from having his credit ruined for the next 10 years, but he is not keeping his home. The bank has just approved a short sale, which means he is selling his house at a lesser value and the bank is taking the loss, Agnani said.
In 2007, Ahmad gave Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-Jamaica) $40,000, which the lawmaker said was a loan, but he didn’t repay it or declare it on his financial disclosure forms until three years later when the transaction was disclosed by the Daily News and the FBI began investigating Ahmad.
“I expect that the Ethics Committee will review the fact that I took out a loan. I paid the loan back and I amended my disclosure form appropriately,” Meeks said Wednesday.
Asked to comment on the charges against Ahmad, whom he said he has not spoken to in “a long time,” Meeks replied, “Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. I don’t want to comment of the specifics of [the case]. ... I will say, and it’s no secret, that during my time as a member of congress I have consistently come out against predatory lending.”
