If you are planning on being a white collar criminal and committing mortgage fraud, this is the time to do so. Do to a lack of funding and manpower the FBI is short 2,500 agents that they previously had to investigate white collar crimes such as mortgage fraud. The demands in a post 911 world have kept the focus on investigating international terrorists and not domestic crimes.

Of course the bad guys know this and that investigations of mortgage fraud are anemic. Like the war on drugs, token and high profile cases are made, but the typical case of mortgage fraud languishes in the to–do box. Combine that with non existant due dilligence in lending and you are looking at 204 convictions for over 4 billion dollars worth of mortgage fraud.

And that is unacceptable.

Dollar losses in 2006 were close to quadruple what they were in 2003 and the number of cases has increased by a similar amount, according to the FBI.
As a result, while banks reported more than 59,000 mortgage-related frauds to the FBI last fiscal year, the bureau obtained only 263 indictments and 204 convictions. Meanwhile, the backlog of mortgage fraud cases under investigation has more than doubled since 2003, from 463 to more than 1,000, according to FBI figures.
An FBI spokesman in Washington, D.C., said it is forming partnerships with other agencies and with groups such as the Mortgage Bankers to make up for the lack of agents it has available.
“We realize that we sometimes have to do more with less,” spokesman Steve Kodak told the P-I.
Carlisle said the lenders appreciate the efforts the FBI’s does make — which have included task forces and a few high-profile investigations — but that making a real dent in the problem will take dollars and cents. The Seattle PI

Hat tip Realtor Magazine Online

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