Reports Of Mortgage Fraud Rose To Record Level Last Year

After the housing market crashed, reports of suspected mortgage fraud soared.

As lenders, homeowners and brokers rushed to close deals, the process during the boom years was tainted by fakery, according to reports later submitted to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, an agency of the Treasury Department. The number of reports of suspected mortgage fraud rose to its highest level on record last year, as 70,472 reports were submitted to the government agency, according to a new release from the LexisNexis Mortgage Asset Research Institute.

That's nearly double the number of cases reported in 2006 when the market was at its peak, and it's nearly 22 times the number of cases reported in 2000. From the LexisNexis release: