100s of brokers netted in FBI sweep
- added June 19, 2008
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- current89
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WASHINGTON - More than 400 real estate industry players have been indicted since March — including dozens over the last two days — in a Justice Department crackdown on incidents of mortgage fraud nationwide that have contributed to the country’s housing crisis.
The FBI put the losses to homeowners and other borrowers who were victims in the schemes at over $1 billion.
“Mortgage fraud and related securities fraud pose a significant threat to our economy, to the stability of our nation’s housing market and to the peace of mind to millions of Americans,” Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip said in a statement Thursday. The Justice Department and FBI planed to announce the cases at an afternoon news conference in Washington, D.C
Since March 1, 406 people have been arrested in the sting dubbed “Operation Malicious Mortgage” that saw 144 cases across the country. Sixty people were arrested on Wednesday alone, including in Chicago, Miami, Houston and a dozen other regions policed by the FBI.
In a separate sweep, two former Bear Stearns managers in New York were indicted Thursday, becoming the first executives to face criminal charges related to the collapse of the subprime mortgage market.
Across the country, reports of mortgage fraud have soared over the past year as the subprime mortgage market collapsed and defaults and foreclosures soared.
Banks reported nearly 53,000 cases of suspected mortgage fraud last year, up from more than 37,000 a year earlier and about 10 times the level of reports in 2001 and 2002, according to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
The most common type of mortgage fraud was misstatement of income or assets, followed by forged documents, inflated appraisals and misrepresentation of a buyer’s intent to occupy a property as a primary residence.
End of Article
Sources: MSNBC, Associated Press
The FBI put the losses to homeowners and other borrowers who were victims in the schemes at over $1 billion.
“Mortgage fraud and related securities fraud pose a significant threat to our economy, to the stability of our nation’s housing market and to the peace of mind to millions of Americans,” Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip said in a statement Thursday. The Justice Department and FBI planed to announce the cases at an afternoon news conference in Washington, D.C
Since March 1, 406 people have been arrested in the sting dubbed “Operation Malicious Mortgage” that saw 144 cases across the country. Sixty people were arrested on Wednesday alone, including in Chicago, Miami, Houston and a dozen other regions policed by the FBI.
In a separate sweep, two former Bear Stearns managers in New York were indicted Thursday, becoming the first executives to face criminal charges related to the collapse of the subprime mortgage market.
Across the country, reports of mortgage fraud have soared over the past year as the subprime mortgage market collapsed and defaults and foreclosures soared.
Banks reported nearly 53,000 cases of suspected mortgage fraud last year, up from more than 37,000 a year earlier and about 10 times the level of reports in 2001 and 2002, according to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
The most common type of mortgage fraud was misstatement of income or assets, followed by forged documents, inflated appraisals and misrepresentation of a buyer’s intent to occupy a property as a primary residence.
End of Article
Sources: MSNBC, Associated Press
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Good. These assholes are still thugs, even if they wear suits. You don't have to look like a crook to be one. Take Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rove/Rumsfeld/Ashcroft etc etc etc for example...
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The people who aloud and committed the fraud need to take responsability for those actions.
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so the FBI might be maintaining some integrity and accountability contrary to the trends of the CIA NSA DOD et al.
it's about time the countless white collar criminals get what's coming to them. how about cheney and halliburton next? -
wow the fbi does do something besides go after marijuana patients and infultrate veagan meetings
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Corporate Suitmen are the worst. So typical.
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- michaelleering
- 2 months ago
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white collar corporate thugs are always getting away with murder. its a shame that these dicks were able to get away with screwing so many people for so many years.
where were the sec & fbi when the banks were giving outrageous variable interest loans to poor people trying to own a home for the first time in their lives???-
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- blackdaylight
- 2 months ago
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Hopefully this will help convince skeptics that this problems wasn't just "dumb" or "greedy" people buying too much house, but rather a case of fraud perputatrated on both investers and potential homeowners.
Yes, admittedly, some people should have known better -- but none of those people would have even had a homeloan as a option had there not been widespread and systematic fraud perputrated at ALL levels of the mortgage industry from the lowly brokers working on comissions all the way up to the very top including financial officers lying to foreign investors about the stability and soundness of the entire operation.
We can try to dismiss this whole thing by saying, "People buying houses are stupid and should have known better." -- but can we be just as dismissive and say "The Harvard educated financial advisors BUYING and investing in these highly risky mortgages are just dumb and should have known better?"
Clearly there was massive fraud going on at all levels and this is a special circumstance.
Allowing massive foreclosures to occur because of this widespread fraud seems a little unfair in my opinion. -
.....all caused by supply side economics......voo doo economics.
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