A U.S. Treasury Department advisory detailing red flags of reverse-mortgage scams takes another step in placing more responsibility for identifying such frauds within banks' anti-money laundering programs, say consultants.
The current design of federally-mandated suspicious activity reports makes it difficult for banks to report important information tied to suspected mortgage fraud, say former law enforcement agents and consultants.
Mortgage lenders will face greater scrutiny from law enforcement agencies and federal regulators following the passage of an anti-mortgage fraud bill and the announcement that further regulations may be coming.
Bank reports of suspected mortgage fraud increased more than regulatory filings of any other financial crime in the twelve-month period ending June 30, the U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday.
The U.S. Justice Department is investigating an undisclosed number of large corporations for fraud "not dissimilar" to Enron's accounting scandal in 2001, an FBI official said Wednesday.
A U.S. lawmaker called Thursday for the formation of a federal task charged with coordinating law enforcement investigations and training related to mortgage fraud.
The Bush administration has added six government agencies, including three financial regulators, to a federal task force charged with fighting mortgage and securities fraud, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
The investigative arm of the Internal Revenue Service, charged with tackling intricate tax and money laundering cases, is shifting resources to handle a mushrooming mortgage fraud caseload, according to current and former special age
Banks, eager to reap financial rewards in the mortgage market, have made perpetrating fraud unnecessarily easy, say security consultants.
At least a couple of the federal regulators demanded it, and the anti-money laundering chiefs who spoke at the ACAMS 7th Annual Money Laundering Conference in Las Vegas last week agreed: AML department must play a greater role in uncovering mortgage and other types of fraud.
A mortgage lending association has plans to create a database that will allow users to share data on specific instances of suspected fraud.
U.S. investigators are relying on suspicious activity reports in their efforts to detect and curtail mortgage fraud, FBI director Robert Mueller said Thursday. The comments, made at a Washington, D.C. press conference, were part of the FBI's announcement that it had filed 144 mortgage fraud cases.
Suspected cases of mortgage loan fraud reported by financial institutions jumped 42 percent in 2007, marking the fourth consecutive year of double digit increases, the U.S. Treasury Department said.
Mortgage fraud cases skyrocketed during the real estate boom of the past decade, and the problem is likely to get worse this year, fraud experts say.