Local real estate developer charged with fraud, money laundering

A Sanford real estate developer was indicted by a grand jury with fraud and money laundering. Joshua Matthews Houchins, 36, owned numerous different real estate companies in Raleigh between 2014 and 2018 and used them to carry out a fraud operation, according to the Department of Justice.

Houchins owned Rossshire Development LLC, Greenstone Ventures LLC and Modern South Development LLC, to name a few. Houchines told victim of his fraud that their money would be "put to work" on a specific property and told his clients that their money would be in a trust deed filed with the county register of deeds. Instead of using the money that his clients paid him to invest, Houchins used the funds for "personal expenses." 

In some instances, the land that Houchins promised to his clients to invest in he didn't even know and could not "truthfully grant a deed of trust to the investor," according to the indictment.

Houchins failed to pay investors and develop and sell properties, as he was representing himself to be doing.

Houchins was charged with nine counts of wire fraud and put in jail for 20 years.