1. news
  2. News Digest

Fraud

Please note: This item is from our archives and was published in 2008. It is provided for historical reference. The content may be out of date and links may no longer function.

Related

TOPICS

  

The growing prevalence of mortgage loan fraud is being met by greater success on the part of the financial community at intercepting the fraud before loans are funded. A Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) report said the number of suspicious activity reports (SARs) relating to mortgage fraud increased 42% from 37,313 in 2006 to 52,868 in 2007 (FinCEN’s year-over-year data is tracked from April 1 through March 31).

In the same period, the suspected fraud was detected prior to loan funding in 31% of all cases resulting in SARs, up from 21% the previous year—an increase of almost 50%.

“This exemplifies how compliance with Bank Secrecy Act regulations is consistent with a financial institution’s commercial concerns,” said FinCEN Director James Freis in a press release.

The most common type of mortgage fraud was misrepresentation of income, assets and debt (43%). Identity theft in conjunction with mortgage fraud, though a small portion of all cases of mortgage fraud (3.45%), increased 96% in 2007.

The report, Mortgage Loan Fraud , is available at www.fincen.gov/MortgageLoanFraudSARAssessment.pdf .