U.S. Says One Thing, Does Another on Mortgage Fraud, Watchdog Says
Four years after President Obama promised to crack down on mortgage fraud, his administration has quietly made the crime its lowest priority and has closed hundreds of cases after little or no investigation, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog said on Thursday.
The report by the department’s inspector general undercuts the president’s contentions that the government is holding people responsible for the collapse of the financial and housing markets. The administration has been criticized, in particular, for not pursuing large banks and their executives.
“In cities across the country, mortgage fraud crimes have reached crisis proportions,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said at a mortgage fraud summit in Phoenix in 2010. “But we are fighting back.”
The inspector general’s report, however, shows that the F.B.I. considered mortgage fraud to be its lowest-ranked national criminal priority. In several large cities, including financial hubs like New York and Los Angeles, F.B.I. agents either ranked mortgage fraud as a low priority or did not rank it at all.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department repeatedly exaggerated its accomplishments using inaccurate data, the report found.
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http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/u-s-overstates-efforts-to-prosecute-mortgage-fraud-watchdog-says/?_php=true&_type=blogs&ref=business&_r=0
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