McAllen title company employee gets 2 years for $350K wire fraud scheme

A Hidalgo County title company employee has been sentenced to prison for her role in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to a news release from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.

McAllen resident Mayela Saby Cantu, 55, pled guilty on Dec. 20, 2024, after admitting to participating “in a scheme that used falsified lien payoff statements, fraudulent warranty deeds and deceptive emails to mislead lenders, title companies and property buyers,” the release said.

Cantu has been sentenced to two years in prison and has been ordered to pay $350,000 in restitution.

The indictment refers to Cantu’s employers as “Company A,” but also makes reference to her and her assistant’s email addresses which uses the domain name sierratitle.com.

It also states that the objective was to keep the company, which is owned and operated by someone referred to as “Person A,” financially afloat, referring to the conspiracy as a “get rich quick” fraud.

According to the release, from November 2020 until the time of her arrest, Cantu defrauded buyers and lenders in multiple property transactions while working at the McAllen title company.

“Using her position of trust, she facilitated closings backed by falsified documents,” the release said.

In one instance, on Nov. 19, 2020, Cantu and “Person A” conspired to create an email address similar to that of a current lien holder to fraudulently release payments to the company they weren’t entitled to receive, according to the indictment.

“Person A sent the fake email address to Cantu via text message,” the indictment said. “Cantu then provided this email address to her assistant, who used it to request fraudulent payoff amounts on the affected properties.”

This resulted in the company obtaining money from parties that they weren’t legally entitled to.

Cantu continued to facilitate fraudulent property transactions, as well as arranging closing on properties that were already sold and accepting cash payments.

In doing so, she caused financial harm to the affected parties.

Cantu was allowed to remain on bond pending her transfer to a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility.

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