Thursday, March 08, 2007

FBI alerts the public about a growing trend in mortgage fraud

According to the FBI, mortgage fraud is a growing issue. To back this up, they are saying:

Mortgage Fraud Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) referred to law enforcement by financial institutions increased from 17,127 SARs in Fiscal Year 2004 to 35,617 SARs in Fiscal Year 2006, reflecting estimated losses of $946 million. FBI Mortgage Fraud investigations have focused on large-scale frauds perpetrated by organized crime and industry insiders, including attorneys, brokers, appraisers, and realtors. Since September 2002, the number and types of investigations have increased from 436 to 1,036. Of these current cases, 51% involve expected losses in excess of $1 million, and 57% involve our federally insured financial institutions as victims.

Full alert (courtesy of the FBI), here.

Here is a file, with a poster about mortgage fraud (also courtesy of the FBI), here.

If you know about any mortgage fraud, or other crime that the FBI investigates - report it online, here.

Mortgage fraud doesn't only hurt financial institutions, the words identity theft and mortgage fraud are frequently showing up in the same cases.

Here is a post, I wrote in January about this growing phenomenon.

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