On December 20, 2024, Mayela Saby Cantu — a 55-year-old escrow officer at Sierra Title in McAllen, Texas — pleaded guilty to one federal count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1349 after an investigation by the FBI, the McAllen Police Department, and the Texas Department of Insurance revealed she had orchestrated a scheme involving falsified lien payoff statements, fraudulent warranty deeds, and spoofed email accounts to defraud lenders, buyers, and a title company across multiple real estate transactions between November 2020 and her arrest. At Cantu's direction, a fraudulent email address was created to impersonate a legitimate lienholder, and through it a false payoff figure was transmitted via interstate wire, causing a title company to disburse more than $350,000 to the wrong parties. The scheme also included closing transactions on properties that had already been sold and accepting undisclosed cash payments. Sentenced in 2025 by Chief U.S. District Judge Randy Crane, Cantu received 24 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay $350,000 in restitution. At sentencing, the court emphasized that her role as an escrow officer — the one party in a transaction trusted by everyone and questioned by no one — was what made the entire scheme possible. A victim addressed the court directly about the financial harm suffered, describing losses that upended a property purchase the family had trusted her to close honestly. Disclaimer: This video is a dramatization based on real events. Some visual content was created with artificial intelligence assistance. Some details have been fictionalized and all names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.