FinCEN: Reported Mortgage Fraud Rises 44%

Financial institutions filed 62,084 Suspicious Activity Reports for mortgage loan fraud from the year spanning July 1, 2007 through June 30, 2008, according to a new report released by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. This is a 44% increase over the preceding year and constitutes 9% of all SAR submissions for the period. Mortgage loan fraud was the third most reported activity during this period. Nearly 900 filing institutions submitted mortgage loan fraud SARs. Of these, according to FinCEN, fewer than 200 institutions submitted 98% (60,800) of the total. The top 10 filing institutions submitted 57% (35,400) of these filings, compared to 30% for the top 10 filing institutions of all SARs. The top 25 filing institutions of mortgage loan fraud SARs submitted 82% (50,900) of filings. FinCEN believe this means there is a high concentration of a small number of depository institutions that account for most mortgage loan fraud filings, as compared to SARs generally.