Mortgage Frauds on the Increase, FBI sending more officers

The subprime mortgage crisis is in full swing, and the FBI has realized that. According to this article at Bloomberg, Kenneth Kaiser has ordered that 26 of the field offices in the United States switch their focus to this problem. Before the switch, 150 agents were working on over 1,300 cases.

Already dealing with the loss of 2,400 FBI agents who were sent to fight terrorism instead of white collar crime after September 11, Kaiser’s new switch will have officers no longer focusing on price fixing, mass marketing, wire fraud, mail fraud and environmental crimes. The states that are affected by this new rule are: Florida, Georgia, California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Minnesota, he said. The targets of these investigations will be real-estate agents, homebuilders, lawyers, appraisers and borrowers.

Just one example of the many fraud mortgage cases was highlighted today at Forbes. Eight individuals, fronted as the Metropolitan Money Store, used those loosing their homes to frequently obtain loans and inflate real estate appraises to strip equity from more than 100 homes. These eight individuals were charged with conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering.

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