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FBI hunting for San Gabriel con man who skipped sentencing

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The FBI was searching Thursday for a San Gabriel man who pleaded guilty to defrauding more than $11 million from 50 families but skipped out on his sentencing in federal court.

David Kaup, 29, was scheduled to be sentenced Monday after pleading guilty in April to two counts of wire fraud, but prosecutors say he never showed up.

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Kaup was behind three separate fraud schemes involving mortgages and refinancing homes that cost dozens of families millions of dollars over five years.

He headed several L.A.-based companies, including Lunden Investments, American Loans and Funding (ALF) and First Mortgage West. Through Lunden Investments, Kaup persuaded investors to give him more than $9 million, which he said he was going to use for commercial loans.

Kaup admitted in his plea that he instead lost approximately $9 million of the victims’ money trading on the Foreign Currency Exchange Market, according to federal prosecutors.

After that, Kaup started a separate scheme to deceive homeowners into sending him money. In his plea, Kaup admitted that through his second company, ALF, he told homeowners he could refinance their homes at below-market rates, so long as they provided certain funds upfront to demonstrate they were financially qualified for the special loan terms. But instead of refinancing the homes, Kaup admitted he used the victims’ money to buy luxury items for himself and to trade on the Foreign Currency Exchange Market. After his scheme collapsed, Kaup admitted in his plea deal that he ran the same scheme, along with others, through a third company, FMW.

According to investigators, Kaup admitted using several aliases, including David Smith and David Martinez. He is described as 5-feet-11, 190 pounds with black hair and brown eyes and is known to work as a disc jockey in the Los Angeles and Las Vegas areas and has used the moniker “New Age Dave.”

FBI agents are asking anyone with information to contact them at (888) 226-8443.

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