Word: fraud
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...begun "almost 20 preliminary and full criminal investigations" into allegations of fraudulent use of bailout funds. He urged the government to revamp the bailout rules so it can better track spending. According to Barofsky, the bailout's Public-Private Investment Partnership program, in particular, is "inherently vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse...
...although Vargas enjoys conspicuous wealth in the U.S., his banking career in the country has met obstacles. In 1993 he paid the Federal Reserve Bank of New York $1.5 million in fines after it determined Vargas had lied about his knowledge of fraud that executives had committed at a bank he was in the process of acquiring. (As part of his settlement with the Reserve Bank, he didn't have to admit guilt.) Today, Vargas cannot invest in U.S. banks without government permission. Still, the incident doesn't seem to have put much of a dent in his personal worth...
...problem the feds face is that the housing crash has created a whole new slew of cases. The first stage of fraud, which helped bring about the crisis, is now being followed by a second as people scheme to buy up foreclosed homes and other properties whose prices have plummeted, or as desperate homeowners hurry to refinance exorbitant mortgages or get their interest rates and principals reduced. As a result, 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...
...long in Florida and the U.S., however, it seemed as though the swindlers were indeed getting away with it. As early as 2004, at the height of the housing frenzy, FBI officials were warning Congress of a mortgage fraud catastrophe: firms like Capital Force were illegally "flipping" properties, often using bogus "straw buyers"; unscrupulous appraisers were inflating their values; sub-prime borrowers lied about their assets; and predatory lenders duped customers into adjustable-rate loans that turned out to be financial time bombs. But according to the Justice Department, prosecutions of cases like those actually dropped between...
...that digging the country out of its economic sinkhole has become an issue of national security, the feds are straining to play catch-up. FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress last month that his agents are currently working more than 2,000 mortgage fraud investigations, compared to only 295 in 2003. "We still have a substantial way to go" in terms of shifting enough agents to those cases, Mueller said. 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...