SAN DIEGO — Three college students and their talking dog exposed an intricate real-estate scam involving a shuttered amusement park Saturday. The park, "Bingo's Funland," was located in San Diego's Ocean Beach area and had suffered through years of money shortfalls after rumors surfaced that it was haunted by the ghost of the pirate Bluebeard.

The teens and the dog, who were on their way to spring break in Ensenada, heard about the park's problems and decided to investigate.

"It turned out that a developer was pretending to be the ghost, so he could lowball the owners, buy the land, level the park, and build luxury condominiums at a tidy profit," said Bill Robinson, a police spokesman. "He would have gotten away with it too, if weren't for those courageous kids."