When I spoke at the American Association of Mortgage Regulators Conference (AARMR) last week in New Orleans, I commented on the fact that, due to heightened underwriting requirements in mortgage lending, origination frauds are more distant from the file. What does this mean? It means that the fraud itself is occurring through third party manipulation that is virtually impossible to discover by a simple review of the mortgage documents. One of the methods I used as an example is credit manipulation. A recent guilty plea out of Miami-Dade illustrates this trend. In this case, a Miami-Dade police officer accepted money to create false police reports reflecting that credit repair customers had reported that they were the victims of identity theft. In such cases, negative credit reporting is blocked. Paying $1,500 for credit repair is generally worthless. But, couple that with a police officer in your back pocket? Price–less.
George Price, 42, a Miami-Dade Police Officer, Miami-Dade, Florida, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1349, an offense punishable by up to twenty years in prison. Continue Reading…
