Mortgage Fraud Investigations Federal Government Announce Crack Down By:
Bill E. Branscum
Copyright 2010
Federal and local law enforcement officials joined together this morning to
announce a series of cases that have resulted from coordinated efforts to target fraud in
the mortgage loan industry. As part of a nationwide crackdown, federal prosecutors in
Los Angeles, Riverside and Orange Counties worked with local and federal
investigators to bring criminal charges against a wide range of individuals involved in
mortgage fraud, including borrowers, “straw borrowers,” corrupt real estate
professionals, bank employees who help facilitate fraud, and those who prey upon
distressed homeowners.
In addition to recently filed criminal cases that charge about three dozen
defendants, the Civil Division of the United States Attorney's Office this week filed five
civil lawsuits that allege mortgage fraud, including one case in which prosecutors are
seeking an immediate order from a judge to shut down an organization allegedly
engaged in an ongoing scheme that is defrauding the federal government.
“Over time, we have seen repeated spikes of fraud targeting financial institutions.
Over the last decade, we saw one of those spikes as mortgage fraud blossomed with
the housing bubble,” said United States Attorney André Birotte Jr. “ When the bubble
burst, in part because of fraud permeating the system, the effects were felt around the
world. We are now sorting the through the wreckage to identify and prosecute the most
egregious offenders. We are also targeting those who continue to exploit the system by
fraudulently obtaining new loans or by bilking upside-down homeowners through loan
modification and rescue scams.
The Press Releases are available at the links below.
Those investigators who have Clients involved in this crack down should look closely at the legislation related to mortgage issuance. These promise to be some interesting case to be involved in.
Oracle International
Bill E. Branscum, Investigator
OracleIntL@aol.com
(239) 304-1639
