Holder Touts Financial-Crimes Fight, Cites 2,800 Mortgage Fraud Probes
Attorney General Eric Holder says the FBI is investigating more than 2,800 mortgage fraud cases, five times the number probed in 2004.
Holder told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission today that mortgage fraud-related charges were pending against 826 defendants as of November, the New York Times reports. The Justice Department, he said, is using “every tool at its disposal” to fight the financial crimes that hurt the pocketbooks of ordinary Americans.
Holder said the Justice Department responded aggressively to the financial crisis, citing examples that included the mortgage fraud cases, the conviction of Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff, and investigations of insider trading at hedge funds, the Wall Street Journal’s Deal Journal blog reports.
But the blog says those examples have little to do with the cause of the financial crisis: the meltdown of subprime mortgages and the securities that backed them.
“Prosecutors are still probing fraud allegations at American International Group and a few other large financial firms,” the blog says. “But so far, the Justice Department’s track record is less stellar than Holder made it sound.”
