The deeper one digs into the Graceland saga, the more bizarre the story gets. In a twist, Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC, the entity that attempted to auction off an iconic piece of American real estate last week in a foreclosure sale, appears to have admitted to The New York Times that they are scammers located in another part of the world. “We figure out how to steal,” reads a response sent to the Times via an email address Naussany listed in a legal filing. “That’s what we do.”
Recall that last week, a Tennessee judge stopped the sale of Elvis Presley’s famed Memphis property by Naussany, a relatively unknown company. Naussany claimed that the late Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’s only child, owed them $3.8 million after taking out a loan with them in 2018—using Graceland as collateral. Investigations by the NYT into the company’s identity yielded no state records anywhere in the US. Calls by the outlet to company phone numbers listed on court documents were met with lines that were out of service, and a filed mailing address was traced to a post office.
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“I had fun figuring this one out and it didn’t succeed very well,” reads the peculiar email sent to the Times. The writer claims to be based in Nigeria and wrote in Luanda, a Bantu language spoken in Uganda. In the email, the writer admits to being an identity thief and the ringleader of a dark web network with “worms” throughout the United States. They claim to specialize in schemes involving the estates of the dead, the unsuspecting, and the elderly in Florida and California.
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Last week’s court hearing proceeded without the company in the courtroom. Their documents were faxed in from a toll-free number. So while the person (or persons) claiming responsibility for the act admit that the foreclosure was an attempt to steal, the exact identity of those behind the racket remains a question mark.
In last week’s hearing, Riley Keough, Elvis Presley’s granddaughter and Graceland’s owner, declared in a filing that loan documents presented by Naussany bore signatures of her late mother that were forged and that Nassauny itself was illegitimate. The judge blocked any immediate proceedings, citing a lack of evidence for the sale. The filing was disputed and Naussany asked for time to present their case, but by the end of the day, The Associated Press and Tennessee media outlet The Commercial Appeal had received emails from Naussany stating that the company was withdrawing their claims.
