Head Law Enforcement Feds: Year-Long Foreclosure Rescue Scam Initiative Resulted In 285 Indictments That Clipped 73K+ Homeowner Victims For Over A Billion

The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced:

• Attorney General Eric Holder, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan, FBI Associate Deputy Director Kevin L. Perkins and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Jon Leibowitz [] announced the results of the Distressed Homeowner Initiative, the first-ever nationwide effort to target fraud schemes that prey upon suffering homeowners.
  
  The yearlong initiative, launched by the FBI, a co-chair of the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force’s Mortgage Fraud Working Group, resulted in 530 criminal defendants charged, including 172 executives, in 285 federal criminal indictments or informations filed in U.S. District Courts across the country.
  
  These cases involved more than 73,000 homeowner victims and total losses by those victims estimated by law enforcement at more than $1 billion.

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• From Oct. 1, 2011, to Sept. 30, 2012 (FY 2012), the Distressed Homeowner Initiative focused on fraud targeting homeowners, such as foreclosure rescue schemes that take advantage of homeowners who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments.
  
  Typically, the con-artist in such a scheme promises the homeowner that he can prevent foreclosure for a substantial fee by, for example, having so-called investors purchase the mortgage, or transferring title in the home to persons in league with the scammer. In the end, the homeowner can lose everything.
  
  Other targets of the Distressed Homeowner Initiative include perpetrators of loan modification schemes who obtained advance fees from homeowners after falsely promises that they would negotiate more favorable mortgage terms on behalf of the homeowners.

For the Justice Department press release, see Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force Members Reveal Results of Distressed Homeowner Initiative (First Law Enforcement Effort Focused on Crimes Against Struggling Homeowners 530 Criminal Defendants Charged, 73,000 Victims and Losses of More Than $1 Billion).