FBI Mortgage Fraud Crackdown
CBS
Transcript
we begin with the tales of a huge government Crackdown on mortgage fraud dubbed operation malicious mortgage today Federal prosecutors announced more than 400 people have been arrested since March including Realtors Builders and mortgage brokers for scams that cost homeowners more than a billion dollars this as the housing market was spinning out of control Bob or has the latest the mortgage fraud charges run the gamut from phony bankruptcies and foreclosure schemes to bogus applications and Builder kickbacks and no corner of the nation was untouched as scammers Coast to Coast sought to cash in on an overheated real estate market seven people for example in Atlanta are charged with taking out $150,000 loans on $30,000 condos a Miami couple is accused of using phony loans to pocket nearly $8 million and in Baltimore four people are charged with buing Millions from struggling homeowners who tried to buy protection from foreclosure in all the 46 people charged since March the government says stole more than a billion dollars money that paid for everything from helicopters to speedboats to persons who would uh are involved in such schemes we will find you uh you will be investigated and you will be uh prosecuted for the FBI mortgage fraud now joins counterterrorism as a top priority cases have doubled in the past four years to more than 1,400 and the number of Agents assigned to mortgage related crimes has jumped 50% in the last year to 180 at the same time the FBI is pressing major investigations of 19 large financial institutions involved in the Meltdown of subprime mortgage related Securities in New York today two former managers for Bear Sterns were arrested on fraud charges accused of duping their investors into funneling more than a billion dollars into hedge funds the Brokers knew were failing in an indictment the government points to an April 2007 email between the two managers in which Matthew tannan urged Ralph chfi to close the funds saying the subprime market looks pretty damn ugly but just 3 days later on a conference call tannan reassured fund investors saying we're very comfortable with exactly where we are beyond that chafi is accused of withdrawing $2 million of his own money from the failing fund even as he pleaded with clients to deposit more this really is sort of the first high-profile blowout of criminal cases to say the government is investigating the government's moving forward with the collapse of mortgage related Securities and the general slowdown in the nation's housing market there is some hope that this financial fraud will level off but the FBI says it sees no sign of that yet Russ Bob or in Washington thank you