Hawaii consumer protection officials are pursuing an Aiea woman, who claims to be a “deputy private attorney general,” for her role in an alleged mortgage scam against local homeowners.

The state Office of Consumer Protection is seeking to recover potentially hidden assets and void what it calls bogus mortgage documents handled by Anabel Gasmen Cabebe, who filed for bankruptcy in November.

OCP alleges that Cabebe played a key role in a scam that persuaded homeowners to quit making mortgage payments to their lenders and instead make dramatically lower payments to a fictitious company that purported to replace existing mortgage debts with new ones.

Homeowners targeted by Cabebe were members of the local Filipino community who had little formal education and some difficulty with English, according to a complaint OCP filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court last month.

Meanwhile, OCP enforcement attorney James Evers said the FBI is investigating Cabebe for criminal wrongdoing, which he said led to Cabebe using her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination in refusing to answer questions in the bankruptcy case from attorneys and creditors.

Michael Green, a local attorney representing Cabebe in the federal investigation, said he can’t talk about Cabebe’s case given that an investigation is ongoing. “She can’t defend herself in Bankruptcy Court because of the federal investigation,” he said.

Cabebe’s bankruptcy attorney, Edward Magauran, ceased representing Cabebe last month. Green said he hopes to find a replacement to represent Cabebe in Bankruptcy Court.

Cabebe claims on a website for a foundation she operates that she is a real estate agent, a deputy private attorney general, a licensed foster care home operator, a notary public, a Filipino movie producer, a media consultant and owner of Mang Gorio’s Lechon Catering Services Inc.

“She is a woman who is endowed with attributes of honesty, integrity, dedication, commitment, and compassion,” the website states. “Deputy Cabebe is internationally known and respected around the globe and the American people.”

OCP, however, claims that Cabebe is involved with a pair of illicit enterprises, Mortgage Enterprise and Mortgage Enterprise Investments.

The agency said Cabebe promoted both entities as a mortgage reduction service that offered to cut balances and monthly payments on mortgage loans in half for homeowners.

To give the enterprises an air of legitimacy, financing statements and in some cases new mortgage documents were filed and recorded with the state Bureau of Conveyances, the agency said in its complaint.

In one example, the owner of a house in Waipahu was presented a copy of a recorded document that states: “This Mortgage replaces and makes null and void the original Mortgage Instrument #T3699649, recorded in the State of Hawaii, Bureau of Conveyance and any other instrument preceding this document.”

In another document filed in the state’s complaint, a Salt Lake homeowner was told by Mortgage Enterprise Investments in a letter that their $623,542 mortgage loan had been reduced to $311, 771. The company instructed the homeowner to mail monthly payments to the firm in Texas and to forward any correspondence from the original mortgage lender to an entity called Common Law Office of America at the same address.

“Your former mortgage company no longer have (sic) an interest in your property and if they send you any correspondences threatening foreclosure procedures or that if you don’t pay them that your credit rating will be negatively affected … we will litigate on your behalf to the full extent of the law,” the notice said.

Evers said homeowners working with the company faced foreclosure actions by original lenders, and that three homeowners were forced to file bankruptcy to buy time to resolve the mess. He said the bogus mortgage and financing documents are getting in the way of legitimate lenders trying to modify loans and avoid foreclosure.

“They are causing the consumers nightmares,” he said of the purported mortgage reduction documents.

Evers said Cabebe ran the two enterprises with the help of four other people — Henry Malinay, Edna Franco, Angelita Pasion and Anthony Troy Williams.

A Bankruptcy Court judge in October ordered Malinay to pay $200,000 to OCP, provide 20 homeowners with $74,000 in restitution and to refrain from a variety of debt and credit enterprises. Malinay could not be reached for comment.

Franco was ordered by a state judge in 2014 to pay $1 million in fines and restitution for running a company that charged distressed homeowners upfront fees for auditing mortgage documents for potential faults that could help in a foreclosure defense. OCP said Franco violated the state’s Mortgage Rescue Fraud Prevention Act that prohibits anyone from charging upfront fees for performing or offering services that include stopping a home foreclosure. Franco argued that her service didn’t qualify because she only offered forensic loan audits.

Evers said Franco is still peddling mortgage rescue schemes. “She’s still creating new scams,” he said. “She is a difficult person to deal with.”

Franco disputes this, and said, in a telephone interview, that she declined to get involved with the mortgage reduction scheme — which she said Williams pitched to her, Cabebe, Malinay and Pasion — because it appeared to be fraudulent.

Pasion, a real estate broker with Aloha Hawaii Realty, said, in a phone interview, she wasn’t involved with the two mortgage reduction operations. She said she paid Williams to ineffectively represent her in court against foreclosure. “I was a victim,” she said.

Williams claims on his website to be a private attorney general with Common Law Office of America, which previously leased shared office space at Waterfront Plaza in Honolulu. Williams has been prevented from representing someone in court in Hawaii and was arrested in Florida a few months ago on charges of practicing law without a license. He could not be reached for comment by phone or email.

On the Common Law Office website, Williams claims that Hawaii’s Attorney General’s Office has been complicit with banks in illegally confiscating homes through unlawful foreclosure. The website also describes Franco as a former employee who accepted money from clients but provided no services, and said Malinay claimed to work for Mortgage Enterprise and Common Law Office under a “guise” to take money from homeowners. Cabebe is featured on the website as a deputy private attorney general and notary.

OCP said in its complaint that 11 homeowners have filed complaints with the agency against Cabebe for $80,000, and other affected homeowners may exist.

The agency said it sought notary records of Cabebe, who is alleged to have acted as the notary validating signatures of nearly all the mortgage reduction documents involving the two enterprises, but that she claimed the records were lost and then stolen.

“Cabebe has deliberately acted to preclude OCP from learning the identity of said creditors or the amounts of their claims,” the agency said in its complaint.

In her bankruptcy filing, Cabebe didn’t list anyone who filed claims against her through OCP as creditors.

Cabebe listed $1.1 million in debts that are primarily mortgages on two homes. She also claims the homes are worth $1.6 million and represent her only assets besides $16,330 in personal property such as furniture, jewelry, cars and clothing.

Cabebe, who proposed paying back the listed debts over five years, also listed $14,000 in monthly income, including roughly $7,000 in rental income, $5,000 from foster care and $700 from Social Security.

OCP questions where the money from mortgage reduction clients went, and has requested that a court-appointed trustee try to uncover assets that could repay creditors.

“It is readily apparent that large sums of money remained unaccounted for and may be a source from which to pay creditors’ claims,” the agency said in a filing.

OCP also seeks to have the Bankruptcy Court declare the mortgage and financing statements handled by Cabebe void in an effort to help homeowners resolve difficulties with their lenders.