Many More Mortgage Fraud Cases in Pipeline; 'Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel'
Mortgage fraud prosecutions are likely to increase exponentially as federal authorities gear up nationwide to put a higher priority on such cases.
In Nevada, they have some 300 cases in the pipeline, cherry-picking the most egregious, reports the Las Vegas Sun.
Like complex drug cases, mortgage fraud cases can mushroom as investigators get more information from suspects about the scope of the operation, an unidentified FBI agent tells the newspaper.
“We have cases with a lot of fingers going in a lot of directions. It’s beginning to be like shooting fish in a barrel,” the agent says.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said this week that the FBI is investigating over 2,800 mortgage fraud cases nationwide, an increase of nearly 400 percent compared to five years ago.
The United States attorney for Nevada, Daniel Bogden, said yesterday that his office got permission late last month to hire two new assistant prosecutors and a paralegal to work on mortgage fraud cases, the Sun reports.
