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Fortress began competing for tax liens this year after joining forces with three former executives of JPMorgan’s tax liens subsidiary. The subsidiary, which bids under the names Xspand and Plymouth Park Tax Services, was among several companies subpoenaed in the grand jury investigation in New Jersey. Former New Jersey Gov. James Florio founded the company [8] and has since sold his interest in it.

Neither JPMorgan nor Fortress would comment for this story. Repeated efforts to reach Mudd were not successful.

Anonymity Questioned

Although many local governments are pleased with the financial results of tax lien sales, D.C. officials question its fairness.

D.C. Attorney General Nickles criticizes Aeon Financial, LLC, a bank-financed investment group from Chicago that buys tax liens in some 10 states. Nickles asserts that Aeon has slammed homeowners, who sometimes owed just a few hundred dollars in back taxes, with $7,000 or more in legal fees.

In papers filed in a local D.C. court in late 2009, the attorney general's office accused the company of “engaging in a pattern of charging and collecting impermissible or excessive legal fees." In an interview, Nickles called that a “rip off.”

Aeon responded that the fees are reasonable, comply with the law and escalate because of improper management by the District’s tax collectors. Homeowners who consider the fees too high can challenge the charges in court.

Court papers show that after Aeon bought liens in the nation’s capital, property owners received notices from a Chicago law firm. The notices warn homeowners to “act now or you could lose your property/investment.” An accompanying letter on the law firm’s letterhead states that “THIS PROPERTY IS IN FORECLOSURE” and demands payment of legal fees.

In April 2009, Nickles formally notified Aeon’s lawyer, Malik J. Tuma, that he had launched a preliminary investigation of Aeon. The company’s notices to homeowners appear "at least, to be deceptive and, at worst, potentially fraudulent," wrote Assistant Deputy Attorney General David Fisher.

In 2008, when Aeon Financial paid the District $4.6 million for the right to collect on 400 liens, it was the single biggest purchaser of tax liens. Even so, Nickles said he still has no idea who the company’s owners are. He is hoping the court case will flush out their names.

An Investigative Fund reporter visiting the address printed on the letters from the Chicago law firm found it to be a mail drop at a UPS Store.

Reached by phone, Tuma declined to comment on Aeon's business practices, citing the ongoing litigation with the District. He would not identify Aeon's principals and said the mailbox at the UPS Store was used "for the safety of our employees."

Tuma added: "There's nothing deceptive about it...I'm in D.C. Superior Court every Wednesday. It's not hard to find me."

Aeon, which has received funding from TCF Bank for tax liens purchases, has an office in Chicago’s Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower, once the world's tallest building. Michael Wehenkel, who has identified himself as Aeon’s chief operating officer in presentations to D.C. officials, did not respond to numerous requests for comment by phone and e-mail.

A spokesman for TCF, a Midwestern bank, said: "We were doing business with [Aeon] and no longer are."

Tax collectors in Florida don’t always know who they’re doing business with, either. Officials in Pinellas County want to know who exactly is behind a company called GL Funding Limited. Sales records show that GL Funding spent more than $10 million and dominated the tax sale in at least 10 Florida counties, most of them rural or smaller cities where interest rates tended to be much higher than in urban and resort areas.

GL Funding registered with several Florida tax collectors as a company with offices in the Cayman Islands. But other counties list a post office box in Philadelphia as its address. The person who registered GL Funding in Pinellas County’s tax sale provided Pinellas with a telephone number in Dallas, Tex. At that number, a man named Jess Weir declined to tell the Investigative Fund who is investing through the name GL Funding.

Said Sam McClelland, deputy tax collector in Pinellas County, Fla., where GL Funding acquired hundreds of liens earlier this year: “We’re still trying to sort this out.”

Lagan Sebert contributed to this article.