HOUSTON -- When we first drove up a home in Houston's Third Ward, we didn't think anyone lived here. 

But then we found the owner, Willie Alston inside. That’s when we broke the news that his home was on a list of properties that had been used in a mortgage fraud scheme.     

“I didn't know anything about it period,” Alston said. “I had no way of knowing.”

Alston says he refinanced his home recently, but never knew there was a problem. Now, he speculates someone may have illegally made nearly $20,000 off his loan.

“It has gotten really bad,” said Harris County Assistant District Attorney Markay Stroud. “Texas has been, for the last several years, slowly been moving into the Top 10 states for mortgage fraud.”

11 News got a hold of a list with 300 homes, which were allegedly used to cheat mortgage companies out of $40 million in the last three years. 

“The prices of homes here were so low compared to the rest of the country. It just made it a hotbed,” said Stroud.

In the latest mortgage fraud case, a grand jury indicted 39-year-old Joseph Leon Nealy. He's accused of stealing at least $200,000 through questionable home deals.

Altogether, 14 people have been indicted in the cases filling boxes at the district attorney’s office and the investigation is not over.

You can bet that Alston has many questions too. Little did he know that someone was allegedly making so much money off his boarded up old home.