Tampa Feds Have Mortgage, Loan Modification Fraud In Its Crosshairs; 200+ Indictments For 2009 Possible

In Tampa, Florida, TIME Magazine reports:

• [T]he U.S. Attorney's office in the Middle District of Florida tells TIME, federal agents and prosecutors have embarked on a "surge" of mortgage and loan-modification fraud investigations that could result in more than 200 indictments this year in the Tampa region alone. "The idea is to do as many cases as we can at once," says Tampa U.S. Attorney Brian Albritton, "to clearly send a message that this is not going to be tolerated."

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• Of the FBI's 56 field offices, more than 40 now have mortgage-fraud task forces. In Florida's Tampa-based Middle District, as many as 50 agents have been incorporated into new task forces that include more than 10 other federal agencies, such as the Secret Service, the U.S. Postal Service, the Department of Housing & Urban Development, the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

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• Albritton, who says the task force is also working with industry insiders who can walk agents and prosecutors through the arcane intricacies of mortgage fraud, hopes to clear the decks by making as many plea deals as possible with suspects as early as this spring. Indictments will come later in the year, and will probably be announced all at once, "to make the largest public impact and have the largest deterrent value."

For more, see Mortgage Fraud Crackdown Gathering Steam in Florida.