New government data indicate that mortgage fraud activity is beginning to ease.
There were 32,926 Suspicious Activity Reports tied to mortgage fraud that were filed from Jan. 1, 2009, to June, 30, 2009, according to a report today from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Activity was barely elevated from the same period during 2008, when 32,660 SARs were filed.
Between the first half of 2007 and the first half of 2008, by contrast, SARs filings jumped 39 percent.
Still, mortgage fraud — which has increased at least 10 percent each of the past six years — remains at a historically high level.
FinCEN is a division of the U.S. Department of the Treasury with a mission of protecting the U.S. financial system from financial crimes.
“FinCEN remains focused on its proactive efforts to assist state, local and federal investigators in efforts to use SARs to crack down on mortgage fraud and foreclosure rescue scams, and to identify other emerging trends and patterns,” FinCEN Director James H. Freis Jr. said in the report.
