"For at least two decades now, thieves have been stealing houses with regularity in Philadelphia"

Phi:

Given the city’s vast store of vacant homes – properties abandoned by owners as relatives die or mortgage bills and taxes accrue – and its ever-shifting number of gentrifying neighborhoods, grifters know they can often make a killing by stealing a house and then quickly reselling it for a profit to an unsuspecting buyer.

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Periodically, law enforcement cracks down.

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In 2009, city prosecutors broke up a 15-member ring, including three notaries, who had stolen and resold more than 80 houses in Kensington.