Mortgage fraud was identified on nearly 31% of suspicious activity reports filed by depository institutions last year, according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
Financial institutions filed 794,710 SAR in 2011, while nonbanks institutions recorded 711,113 reports. FinCEN said the volume of SAR filings in 2011 represented a high over any previous calendar year, increasing 14% in the last 12 months.
Out of all of the SARs filed from depository institutions in 2011, possible mortgage fraud was reported on 92,028 files, compared to only 70,472 the prior year.
Potential mortgage loan fraud activity has gone up every year since 1996, FinCEN said. But it has been pretty common over the last two year’s, accounting for about 37% of the overall suspicious report activity experienced within this category in the last decade.
“This upward spike in mortgage fraud counts is in predominant part attributable to mortgage repurchase demands and special filings generated by several institutions,” FinCEN said in its annual report.
Check fraud, which had 72,811 filings, was the second most common type of fraudulent activity to be reported behind mortgage fraud. Next was credit card fraud (35,124 filings), then wire transfer fraud (14,214), consumer loan fraud (14,194), debit card fraud (5,731) and last was commercial loan fraud (3,347).
Meanwhile, the number of reports indicating identity theft fell for the third straight year, down 2% in 2011, almost 12% the prior year and 9% in 2009. Since July 2003, there have been 238,851 cases classified as identity theft.
