Loan Fraud Rises in Latest FinCEN Report

February 1, 2011

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) released its third-quarter 2010 mortgage fraud report.

According to FinCEN, suspicious activity reports (SARs), characterized by filers as indicating possible mortgage loan fraud (MLF), increased 2 percent to 16,693 in the third quarter of 2010, up from 16,339 MLF SARs in the 2009 third quarter.

The report also indicated that the total number of SARs for all categories filed during the quarter increased 2 percent to 175,717, up from 172,125 filed in the 2009 third quarter. In all, 9 percent of all SARs filed in the 2010 third quarter indicated MLF as an activity characterization, the same percentage reported in the third quarter of 2009.

FinCEN reports activity based on location, types of scams and other trends in an effort to assist law enforcement in further investigation of mortgage loan fraud.

The key findings in the report indicate that California and Florida had the highest number of subjects, followed by New York and Illinois. Based on subjects per capita, Florida and California switched places in the first and second place rankings, while Nevada and Arizona replaced New York and Illinois as third and fourth highest per capita.


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