Mortgage Loan Fraud SAR Filings Up in 2010

This story appeared in Bank Digest.

The Mortgage Loan Fraud SAR Filings In Fourth Quarter and Calendar Year 2010, released by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network shows the number of suspicious activity reports involving mortgage loan fraud increased 4 percent in 2010 to 70,472, compared with 67,507 in 2009. The report also shows that the growth rate of MLF SARs began to slow over the last two to three years.

 

The FinCEN report found that references to bankruptcy have steadily increased over time in MLF SAR filings. In 2010, 6 percent of all MLF SARs contained a key term related to bankruptcy in the SAR narrative, compared to 1 percent in 2006 and 2007. In 2010, mortgage loan fraud was cited in 54 percent of all SARs referencing bankruptcy fraud, up from 42 percent in 2009.

Filers in their SARs also called attention to debt elimination scams as one of the emerging practices. Debt elimination scams were cited in nearly 1,300 MLF SARs in 2010. In these SARs, filers noted subjects sending a variety of documents or bogus payment methods to financial institutions, in attempts to eliminate or satisfy mortgage obligations.

“FinCEN remains active with law enforcement and other partner agencies to provide lead information and to identify and combat potential abuses in the mortgage market,” said  FinCEN Director James H. Freis Jr. “As a member of the President's Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, FinCEN is coordinating with the United States Trustee Program (USTP) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to identify potential mortgage loan fraud in a number of areas including identifying potential abuse of the bankruptcy system to facilitate mortgage fraud.”