Meet Nana I Am, The Mystery Man Behind a Bizarre Las Vegas Squatter Case
Editor’s Note: This is Part One of a two-part series.
He sues all the time but never seems to win. He writes his name countless different ways. Accused squatters say he gave them keys to an abandoned, custom-built house and coached them on what to tell the police if they came knocking.
He calls himself Nana I Am — and he’s at the center of perhaps the most unique and bizarre squatter case in Las Vegas.
Nana teamed with Miguel and Dinora Barraza this year to sue the owners of an abandoned, high-end home in the northwest valley. The trio claimed to be the real owners, sought more than $20 million in damages and said they took possession of the house in 1900 — 105 years before it was built.
Metro Police raided the house a few months ago, arresting the Barrazas on squatting-related charges. They hoped to win the lawsuit so they could live for free in the foreclosed home, according to an arrest report, but Dinora told police they made one payment: Nana got $800 to file the suit.
Squatters have taken over abandoned houses throughout the valley the past few years, but the saga of Nana and the Barrazas is different than most. It’s marked by luxury homes, suspicious real estate transactions, a squatter Cinco de Mayo party, ties to anti-government “sovereign citizens” ideology and lawyer-less lawsuits in which the plaintiffs seek hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars and make nonsensical claims.
“Obviously none of the plaintiffs were alive in the year 1900,” a Metro officer wrote in the Barrazas’ arrest report, adding their lawsuit’s claim that one fraud was perpetrated between 2014 and 1900 “unmistakably does not make any sense.”
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