Announcement of the arrests came at a Thursday afternoon Justice Department press conference conducted by Deputy Attorney General Mark R. Filip and FBI Director Robert Mueller. Filip said the arrests took place in Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, and suburban Maryland among other locations and those arrested included industry borrowers, loan originators, and real estate agents. 60 people were arrested on Wednesday alone with the round-up continuing.

The sweep, code named Operation Malicious Mortgage, was the third major action that the Department of Justice has headed up since 2004 against mortgage fraud and related crimes. The most recent activity has resulted in 144 mortgage fraud cases in which 406 defendants have been charged since March 1. Cases were brought in every region of the country and in more than 50 judicial districts. The FBI estimates that approximately $1 billion in losses resulted from the mortgage fraud schemes employed in these cases.

Mortgage fraud video provided by Moishe Alexander, Canadian Funding Corp Innovations

In general, mortgage fraud involves three distinct types of fraud; lending fraud, foreclosure rescue scams and mortgage-related bankruptcy schemes. Lending fraud frequently involves multiple loan transactions in which industry professionals construct mortgage transactions based on gross fraudulent misrepresentations about the borrower’s financial status, such as overstating the borrower’s income or assets, using false or fictitious employment records or inflating property values. Foreclosure rescue scams involve criminals who target legitimate homeowners in dire financial circumstances and fraudulently collect fees for foreclosure prevention services or obtain ownership interests in residential properties. Both of these fraudulent mortgage schemes may be furthered by filing bankruptcy petitions that automatically stay foreclosure.

In the case of the recent DOJ action, the most common type of mortgage fraud was misstatement of income or assets, followed by forged documents, inflated appraisals and misrepresentation of a buyer’s intent to occupy a property as a primary residence. Filip said, “The integrity and credibility of these markets depend upon fair dealing. While the law cannot dictate economic outcomes or protect individuals from bad investment decisions or unlucky greats, it does protect them from fraud.” He said that the investigation and prosecution of these crimes will continue.

In a separate action, an indictment was unsealed in the Eastern District of New York charging two Bear Stearns portfolio managers with conspiracy, securities fraud, wire fraud, and insider trading charges growing out of alleged misrepresentations to two Bear Stearns hedge funds that invested in securities tied to mortgage debt. The indictment alleges that the two marketed the funds as a low risk strategy. By March, 2007 they believed the funds were in grave condition and at risk of collapse but made misrepresentations about the amount of money other investors were withdrawing and about the extent of their personal investment in the funds. This was done, the indictment alleges, to stave off investor withdrawal. The funds did collapse last summer, resulting in losses to investors estimated at $1.4 billion.

Filip and Mueller credited a number of other federal agencies with assisting with the investigation including the Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Postal Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The FBI says it has arrested about 300 real estate industry players since March — including dozens over the last two days — in its crackdown on incidents of mortgage fraud that have contributed to the country’s housing crisis. (We assume that the discrepancy in numbers arrested is attributable to police actions taken by other agencies.)

Lender
Mortgagee is a party to whom property is mortgaged, usually a lender. Mortgage provides security to the lender. Given the large sum of money involved in financing a property, a mortgage lender will usually want security for the loan that will provide a claim upon that security and will take precedence over other creditors. A mortgage accomplishes this security.

The lender loans the money and registers the mortgage with the title to the property. The borrower gives the lender the mortgage as security for the loan, receives the funds, makes the required payments and maintains possession of the property. The borrower has the right to have the mortgage discharged from the title once the debt is paid. If the mortgager fails to repay the loan according to the conditions set forth by the lender, then the mortgagee reserves the right to foreclose on the property.

Borrower
A mortgagor is the borrower in a mortgage–they owe the obligation secured by the mortgage. Generally, the debtor must meet the conditions of the underlying loan or other obligation and the conditions of the mortgage. Otherwise, the debtor usually runs the risk of foreclosure of the mortgage by the creditor to recover the debt. Typically the debtors will be the individual home-owners, landlords or businesses who are purchasing their property by way of a loan.

Most buyers of real property would have difficulty saving enough money to make an outright purchase of real estate. The use of debt increases a buyer’s ability to buy through a combination of down payment and debt. As a result a real estate transaction seldom occurs without buyers relying on borrowed funds.

Borrowing for investment purposes
Aside from the absence of large amount of available money, there are several reasons why an investor (including a buyer of real estate) might borrow funds. Some of these include:

To diversify investments and reduce overall risk by using only part of the available funds for any one investment. However the mortgage loan enables him to purchase more assets than he would otherwise been able to, and therefore in general increases investment risk rather than reducing it.

To invest the borrowed funds at a higher rate of interest (yield) than the borrowing rate; for example, a sum is borrowed at an annual interest rate of 7% per year and used to invest in a project that returns 10% per year. This is likely to be speculative and there is usually a possibility that the project may turn out to return less than 7% per year or to lose money.

To free up equity for other purposes; for example, a commercial enterprise may prefer to use funds to purchase inventory or equipment instead of investing only in land and buildings.

To obtain a tax benefit. In some countries (such as Canada), mortgage interest is not tax deductible, but loans made for investment purposes are.

Other participants
Because of the complicated legal exchange, or conveyance, of the property, one or both of the main participants are likely to require legal representation. The terminology varies with legal jurisdiction; see lawyer, solicitor and conveyancer.

Because of the complex nature of many markets the debtor may approach a mortgage broker or financial adviser to help them source an appropriate creditor, typically by finding the most competitive loan.

The debt is, in civil law jurisdictions, referred to as hypothecation, which may make use of the services of a hypothecary to assist in the hypothecation.