Friday, March 14, 2014

U.S. Criticized for Lack of Action on Mortgage Fraud - NYTimes.com

U.S. Criticized for Lack of Action on Mortgage Fraud - NYTimes.com

"Four years after President Obama promised to
crack down on mortgage fraud, his administration has quietly made the
crime its lowest priority and has closed hundreds of cases after little
or no investigation, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog said on
Thursday.
The report by the department’s inspector general
undercuts the president’s contentions that the government is holding
people responsible for the collapse of the financial and housing
markets. The administration has been criticized, in particular, for not
pursuing large banks and their executives.
“In cities across the country, mortgage fraud crimes have reached crisis proportions,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said at a mortgage fraud summit in Phoenix in 2010. “But we are fighting back.”
The inspector general’s report, however, shows that the F.B.I.
considered mortgage fraud to be its lowest-ranked national criminal
priority. In several large cities, including New York and Los Angeles,
F.B.I. agents either ranked mortgage fraud as a low priority or did not
rank it at all.
..."

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