October 25, 2010 6:09 PM
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FBI Cites Spike in Mortgage Fraud
(CBS)
This story was written by CBS News producer Rob Hendin for cbsnews.com.
FBI officials tell CBS News that there are currently more than 1,300 active investigations into mortgage fraud. That number has also been on the rise in recent years as the crisis has grown, with open investigations increasing 47% from 2006, according to a new FBI report on mortgage fraud.
Of those active investigations, more than 50% involved losses of more than $1 million. The FBI has put hundreds of agents onto multiple nationwide task forces aimed at finding and prosecuting mortgage fraud and is currently looking at 19 large corporate entities involved in possible wrongdoing over subprime loans.
According to the report, foreclosures increased more than 75% in 2007 over the previous year while the subprime share of outstanding loans more than doubled since 2003.
There were more than 2.2 million foreclosures on over 1.2 million properties nationally in 2007. And the percentage of outstanding loans that are classified as subprime grew from 5% in 2003 to over 13% last year.
For the federal government, the only real way to measure mortgage fraud is the number of suspicious activity reports (SARs) filed by homeowners and authorities to the FBI. Last year there were more than 46,700 reports, up 31% over the previous year. FBI officials tell CBS News that the bureau is on pace to pass 65,000 SARs for 2008, which would be a new record. As a reference point, there were only 6,900 such reports in all of 2003.
The report also identifies the top 10 mortgage fraud states for 2007 as Florida, Georgia, Michigan, California, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, New York, Colorado and Minnesota.
By Robert Hendin
FBI officials tell CBS News that there are currently more than 1,300 active investigations into mortgage fraud. That number has also been on the rise in recent years as the crisis has grown, with open investigations increasing 47% from 2006, according to a new FBI report on mortgage fraud.
Of those active investigations, more than 50% involved losses of more than $1 million. The FBI has put hundreds of agents onto multiple nationwide task forces aimed at finding and prosecuting mortgage fraud and is currently looking at 19 large corporate entities involved in possible wrongdoing over subprime loans.
According to the report, foreclosures increased more than 75% in 2007 over the previous year while the subprime share of outstanding loans more than doubled since 2003.
There were more than 2.2 million foreclosures on over 1.2 million properties nationally in 2007. And the percentage of outstanding loans that are classified as subprime grew from 5% in 2003 to over 13% last year.
For the federal government, the only real way to measure mortgage fraud is the number of suspicious activity reports (SARs) filed by homeowners and authorities to the FBI. Last year there were more than 46,700 reports, up 31% over the previous year. FBI officials tell CBS News that the bureau is on pace to pass 65,000 SARs for 2008, which would be a new record. As a reference point, there were only 6,900 such reports in all of 2003.
The report also identifies the top 10 mortgage fraud states for 2007 as Florida, Georgia, Michigan, California, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, New York, Colorado and Minnesota.
By Robert Hendin
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Robert Hendin Robert Hendin is senior producer for "Face the Nation" and a CBS News senior political producer.
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