In the spring of 2007, my colleagues Pam Louwagie and Glenn Howatt were investigating how wanton real estate speculation was laying waste to the North Side of Minneapolis. They came upon a blatantly illegal real estate scheme that centered on a Brooklyn Park company called Universal Mortgage Inc. and involved, as a straw buyer, an exotic dancer who had purchased 10 houses, racking up $2.4 million in debt in the process. Their story caught the eye of Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, who, as of last week, has successfully prosecuted the major players in the mortgage fraud. Last year I reported the sentences for the company's president and other henchmen. On Friday, my colleague Rochelle Olson reported the lengthy term for former Universal employee Marlon Pratt, who insists that he's innocent, despite the judge's description of him as greedy with a capital "G."

So what happened to the house that first tipped us off to this scheme? Hennepin County property records indicate that 3011 Logan Avenue North is now owned by IndyMac Bank. I should say, the former IndyMac bank, because it was shut down by federal banking regulators last year because of bad mortgage loans. Its assets were acquired by another California bank, OneWest Bank. Cost to taxpayers: an estimated $10.7 billion.