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Scope Note The purpose of this study is to provide insight into the breadth and depth of mortgage fraud crimes perpetrated against the United States and its citizens during 2009. This report updates the 2008 Mortgage Fraud Report and addresses current mortgage fraud projections, issues, and the identification of mortgage fraud "hot spots." The objective of this study is to provide FBI program managers with relevant data to better understand the threat, identify trends, allocate resources, and prioritize investigations. The report was requested by the Financial Crimes Section, Criminal Investigative Division (CID), and prepared by the Financial Crimes Intelligence Unit (FCIU), Directorate of Intelligence (DI). This report is based on FBI, state and local law enforcement, mortgage industry, and open-source reporting. Information was also provided by other government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-Office of Inspector General (HUD-OIG), Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the Federal National Mortgage Association, and the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Industry reporting was obtained from the LexisNexis Mortgage Asset Research Institute (MARI), RealtyTrac, Inc., Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), and Interthinx®. Some industry reporting was acquired through open sources. While the FBI has high confidence in all of these sources, some inconsistencies relative to the cataloging of statistics by some organizations are noted. For example, suspicious activity reports (SARs) are cataloged according to the year in which they are submitted and the information contained within them may describe activity that occurred in previous months or years. The geographic specificity of industry reporting varies as some companies report at the zip code level, and others by city, region, or state. Many of the statistics provided by the external sources, including FinCEN, FHA, and HU

Over 200 people have been arrested in connection with a massive bank card fraud that may have bilked banks and clients out of a billion yuan ($159 million), the Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday. The Ministry of Public Security detained 208 people in eight provinces and municipalities. Police said they confiscated thousands of bank cards and have frozen 150 bank accounts. Police in eight regions coordinated the bust on June 11, following a lengthy investigation of key suspects including a Taiwanese surnamed Wu and a South Korean surnamed Park. The investigation began in November 2011, when two Taiwanese were caught using a counterfeit bank card to withdraw cash from an automatic teller machine (ATM) in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, according to the ministry. A similarly faked card was used three days later when another suspect tried to withdraw money from an ATM on Jiefang Road in the city. The police investigation concludes that banks in South Korea and Thailand were the main targets of the swindle. Local police in Shaoxing confirmed to the Global Times yesterday that 146 suspects were arrested in the city alone. "All 208 suspects are now here for questioning, and no further details can be provided at the moment," a police officer surnamed Sun from Shaoxing public security bureau, told the Global Times. The Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post reported that the bust involves the largest amount of money and the most suspects of any bank card fraud in China. It is not known how the gang may have managed to swindle hundreds of millions of yuan from Chinese ATMs without being detected earlier. Police say suspects in South Korea bought the phone numbers of bank clients online, and managed to scam them by posing as bank officials who were concerned their accounts were at risk, said Xinhua. The clients were told to use their account number and password to log onto seemingly official South Korean websites. After obtaining the bank client's account in

The Swedish government want to increase penalties for issuing fake bills and have appointed a committee to look into the growing problem of billing fraud in Sweden. Judge falls asleep twice during trial (6 Jan 12) Fake invoice fraud on the rise in Sweden: report (3 Jan 12) 'Wheelchair man' jailed for four years for fraud (10 Dec 11) "The real problem is that there is no experience among local police stations across the country to investigate this properly. There is no organized or functioning cooperation between different agencies, which is remarkable," said public prosecutor Tord Josefsson to news agency TT. Josefsson has recently appealed a billing fraud verdict in Helsingborg, in southern Sweden, and is set to discuss these issues with minister for justice, Beatrice Ask, on Wednesday. According to Josefsson, harsher legislation is not the answer to the increasing problem. He told TT that longer sentences are not the answer, as the maximum penalty for economic crime is five to six years but that it is unusual for courts to give out sentences this long. "That courts sentence fraudsters to this long sentences is very uncommon. It really only occurs when the activity is seen as particularly menacing to society," Josefsson told TT. Ask, however, told TT that the police and courts need to look closer at this kind of crime. "It is developing at an alarming pace and is becoming a huge problem. Fake bills have become a major source of income for organized crime," Ask said. Although the rules need to differ between individuals and small businesses, it is vital that there are clear guidelines in both cases, according to Ask. "It's not all about giving out harsher sentences but also to see on a larger scale what problems there are. Maybe one also needs to question whether the current legislation is adequate," Ask told TT.

Dozens of North Korean defectors have been booked for committing insurance fraud here, in which they gained more than 1 billion won ($874,737), police said Tuesday. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said they applied for arrest warrants for two North Korean defectors, including a 28-year-old woman whose identity is being withheld, on suspicion of getting falsely hospitalized to win insurance money. Twenty-five more North defectors were also booked for insurance fraud, the police said. The suspects held a large amount of insurance policies and got hospitalized for a variety of false diseases before winning a total of 1.04 billion won in compensation from 2007-10, according to the police. Police investigations found that while hospitalized they frequented saunas, restaurants and even night clubs. The insurance money was mostly spent on living expenses or sent through Chinese brokers to their families in the North, the police also noted. The police added that they have also booked a 71-year-old doctor and five other hospital employees for falsely admitting them, and two brokers who helped them transmit the money to the North. The doctor and his staff earned more than 100 million won from the national health insurance agency through the fraud. "The suspects found the doctor's hospital through word of mouth that he easily let people in for hospitalization," a police official said. "We will expand our investigation as there is intelligence on similar cases at more hospitals." More than a thousand defectors come into the South every year in search of political freedom and economic prosperity, but many fail to adjust to the new system. (Yonhap)

Dozens of North Korean defectors have been booked for committing insurance fraud here, in which they gained more than 1 billion won ($874,737), police said Tuesday. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said they applied for arrest warrants for two North Korean defectors, including a 28-year-old woman whose identity is being withheld, on suspicion of getting falsely hospitalized to win insurance money. Twenty-five more North defectors were also booked for insurance fraud, the police said. The suspects held a large amount of insurance policies and got hospitalized for a variety of false diseases before winning a total of 1.04 billion won in compensation from 2007-10, according to the police. Police investigations found that while hospitalized they frequented saunas, restaurants and even night clubs. The insurance money was mostly spent on living expenses or sent through Chinese brokers to their families in the North, the police also noted. The police added that they have also booked a 71-year-old doctor and five other hospital employees for falsely admitting them, and two brokers who helped them transmit the money to the North. The doctor and his staff earned more than 100 million won from the national health insurance agency through the fraud. "The suspects found the doctor's hospital through word of mouth that he easily let people in for hospitalization," a police official said. "We will expand our investigation as there is intelligence on similar cases at more hospitals." More than a thousand defectors come into the South every year in search of political freedom and economic prosperity, but many fail to adjust to the new system. (Yonhap)

"springhill group seoul korea Multiply-Korea`s largest bank reports 3,000 cases of loa... http://springhillgrouphome.multiply.com/journal/item/124/Koreas-largest-bank-reports-3000-cases-of-loan-doc-fraud-    Korea`s largest bank Kookmin has had 3,000 cases of document manipulation in applications for collective loans for intermediate payment. The bank said five people recently filed a petition to police after suffering losses from manipulation of related documents by bank staff, and has launched an investigation into similar cases. According to the Financial Supervisory Service and the bank, Kookmin probed between the end of last month and Aug. 10 manipulation cases on 200,000 collective loans for intermediate payment on 850 reconstruction and redevelopment apartment sites, and discovered more than 3,000 fraud cases. According to the bank`s findings, most cases involved employee manipulation of the expiration date of collective loans for intermediate payment. In the past, three years of maturity have typically been written for collective loans for intermediate payment regardless of when the borrower would move to the house. If the bank`s headquarters reduced the time to 26 or 27 months, however, bank employees would scrape out the number and put in three years again. If the lending period is shorter than the date written in the contract, the borrower would be pressured for repayment. Collective loans for intermediate payment are shifted to lending with home collateral. So a person can move into a house before the lending maturity expires, but failure to move in within the time frame would mean he or she must make the intermediate payment because it is not shifted to a home equity loan. Since the number of manipulation cases was bigger than expected, a massive filing of lawsuits is likely. Fraud was considerable in cases of apartments that people had signed contracts on, an area that has seen many conflicts between builders and banks. A financial regulatory source

"http://springhillgrouphome.multiply.com/journal/item/124/Koreas-largest-bank-reports-3000-cases-of-loan-doc-fraud-    Korea`s largest bank Kookmin has had 3,000 cases of document manipulation in applications for collective loans for intermediate payment. The bank said five people recently filed a petition to police after suffering losses from manipulation of related documents by bank staff, and has launched an investigation into similar cases. According to the Financial Supervisory Service and the bank, Kookmin probed between the end of last month and Aug. 10 manipulation cases on 200,000 collective loans for intermediate payment on 850 reconstruction and redevelopment apartment sites, and discovered more than 3,000 fraud cases. According to the bank`s findings, most cases involved employee manipulation of the expiration date of collective loans for intermediate payment. In the past, three years of maturity have typically been written for collective loans for intermediate payment regardless of when the borrower would move to the house. If the bank`s headquarters reduced the time to 26 or 27 months, however, bank employees would scrape out the number and put in three years again. If the lending period is shorter than the date written in the contract, the borrower would be pressured for repayment. Collective loans for intermediate payment are shifted to lending with home collateral. So a person can move into a house before the lending maturity expires, but failure to move in within the time frame would mean he or she must make the intermediate payment because it is not shifted to a home equity loan. Since the number of manipulation cases was bigger than expected, a massive filing of lawsuits is likely. Fraud was considerable in cases of apartments that people had signed contracts on, an area that has seen many conflicts between builders and banks. A financial regulatory source said, "Document manipulation cases, if identified, will raise the number of lawsuits by r

"Springhill Groups-PRINGHILL gROUPS Mortgage Fraud Prosecutors Pounce on a Small Bank Yesterday 11:14 PM #1 One of the few things not in dispute in the criminal case against Abacus Federal Savings Bank is that it began with a mortgage closing on Friday, Dec. 11, 2009, for a two-family home in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. Abacus is a small bank, catering mostly to Chinese immigrants. The closing was at 10 a.m. at the bank's headquarters, a brown-brick building on the Bowery in New York's Chinatown between a noodle shop and an herbal medicine emporium. Sitting around the table in an undecorated conference room were the seller, the buyers, their attorneys, the real estate broker, and the title closer. Vera Sung, Abacus's lawyer, was in and out of the meeting. Sung, 46, is a daughter of the bank's founder-her younger sister Jill is Abacus's chief executive officer. Vera is also a onetime prosecutor in the Brooklyn district attorney's office, and that morning she recalls hearing something that made her pause: The borrowers were asking about extra checks they had earlier made out to the loan officer, Qibin "Ken" Yu. Sung didn't know what those checks were. "I thought this was very strange, so I stopped the closing," Sung says. She spoke to Yu in her office, then called Jill, and they canceled the loan. The following Monday, Yu was fired. The bank's executives won't speculate what the checks were for, but in other fraud cases individual loan officers have been convicted of asking for kickbacks or payments for falsifying paperwork. Yu's lawyer declined to comment. "

(1888PressRelease) Uncovering medicare scams latest news articles for general public to use. U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, has reintroduced legislation that would double the amount of fines and incarceration for people in prison for Medicare fraud/scam. It also creates a new criminal offense punishable with a 10 year minimum sentence for those who intentionally sell or distribute the ID numbers of Medicare beneficiaries. According to the Springhill Group, the legislation also bars those who have been part of Medicare dupery in the past from billing Medicare if they switch companies. It also facilitates real-time information sharing among law enforcement agencies to aid in uncovering and dismantling Medicare scams. "South Florida has been known as the epicenter of Medicare dupery for years," she said. "It is time we took the fight to those who seek to defraud Medicare and prey on our most vulnerable citizens. This bill not only raises the penalties for those who engage in Medicare fraud, but also sets up a pro-active paradigm that will help stem the tide of abuse in South Florida and across the nation."The bill takes particular aim at Medicare theft in Miami-Dade County, widely regarded as the nation's capital of healthcare dupery. Medicare dupery in South Florida costs taxpayers between $3 billion and $4 billion every year, according to law enforcement and healthcare officials. Nationwide, Medicare and other healthcare fraud is estimated to cost $68 billion each in very year. http://springhillmedgroup.com source: http://www.1888pressrelease.com/springhill-group-medicare-dupery-bill-re-brought-in-pr-379308.html "Niche Site Builder Software" Discover how you can easily create Niche Websites promoting products from Amazon and Clickbank Fast! Just fill in the required fields and any content you want to add and the software will create a complete, monetized Niche Affiliate Site. You can build as many sites as you want! Not only will you get the software to us

"Springhill Groups-PRINGHILL gROUPS Mortgage Fraud Prosecutors Pounce on a Small Bank One of the few things not in dispute in the criminal case against Abacus Federal Savings Bank is that it began with a mortgage closing on Friday, Dec. 11, 2009, for a two-family home in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. Abacus is a small bank, catering mostly to Chinese immigrants. The closing was at 10 a.m. at the bank's headquarters, a brown-brick building on the Bowery in New York's Chinatown between a noodle shop and an herbal medicine emporium. Sitting around the table in an undecorated conference room were the seller, the buyers, their attorneys, the real estate broker, and the title closer. Vera Sung, Abacus's lawyer, was in and out of the meeting. Sung, 46, is a daughter of the bank's founder-her younger sister Jill is Abacus's chief executive officer. Vera is also a onetime prosecutor in the Brooklyn district attorney's office, and that morning she recalls hearing something that made her pause: The borrowers were asking about extra checks they had earlier made out to the loan officer, Qibin "Ken" Yu. Sung didn't know what those checks were. "I thought this was very strange, so I stopped the closing," Sung says. She spoke to Yu in her office, then called Jill, and they canceled the loan. The following Monday, Yu was fired. The bank's executives won't speculate what the checks were for, but in other fraud cases individual loan officers have been convicted of asking for kickbacks or payments for falsifying paperwork. Yu's lawyer declined to comment. http://www.businessweek.com/articles...n-a-small-bank"

Springhill Group : Facebook might be reading your text messages The online community is all abuzz on Sunday after an explosive report has accused Facebook of snooping in smartphone users' text messages. Though Facebook admitted to reading SMS of users who have downloaded their app, they said they are only doing so as part of a limited testing phase prior to launching their own messaging service and not to deliberately expose users to fraud. The Facebook app running on Android is authorized to process, read, receive and write SMS, something they have declared in their terms beginning from the 1.7 version. Facebook said this is in anticipation of new features that will integrate Facebook tools with user texts. Now, if Facebook eventually introduces a feature that will be applicable to those permissions, they are ensuring the users even now that it will be accompanied by proper educational and guiding materials. Facebook retorted that users should be aware that it said it might access their messages, contained under "Permissions" - that long article you are expected to have read before downloading/using the app. Unfortunately, 70% of smartphone users do not seem to have the time for reading the terms and conditions attached to an app. Other popular companies that are using smartphones to access data and other personal details of users include Yahoo Messenger, Badoo, Google and Flickr. Several companies can reportedly control smartphone features remotely, which includes taking images and video using the camera, as in the case of YouTube. Also, details like contacts list, location and browser history are accessed and can be passed on to third-parties like advertisers. According to a statement issued by Facebook, it does not read user text messages and described the Sunday Times report as 'completely wrong' on their terminology and the impression they have made. But Facebook gave an explanation anyway: "…w

Protect Yourself from Predatory Lenders Buying or refinancing your home may be one of the most important and complex financial decisions you'll ever make. Many lenders, appraisers, and real estate professionals stand ready to help you get a nice home and a great loan. However, you need to understand the home buying process to be a smart consumer. Every year, misinformed homebuyers, often first-time purchasers or seniors, become victims of predatory lending or loan fraud. Don't let this happen to you! 11 Tips on Being a Smart Consumer - Before you buy a home, attend a homeownership education course offered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-approved, non-profit counseling agencies. - Interview several real estate professionals (agents), and ask for and check references before you select one to help you buy or sell a home. - Get information about the prices of other homes in the neighborhood. Don't be fooled into paying too much. - Hire a properly qualified and licensed home inspector to carefully inspect the property before you are obligated to buy. Determine whether you or the seller is going to be responsible for paying for the repairs. If you have to pay for the repairs, determine whether or not you can afford to make them. - Shop for a lender and compare costs. Be suspicious if anyone tries to steer you to just one lender. - Do NOT let anyone persuade you to make a false statement on your loan application, such as overstating your income, the source of your down payment, failing to disclose the nature and amount of your debts, or even how long you have been employed. When you apply for a mortgage loan, every piece of information that you submit must be acc

Springhill Group : Facebook might be reading your text messages The online community is all abuzz on Sunday after an explosive report has accused Facebook of snooping in smartphone users' text messages. Though Facebook admitted to reading SMS of users who have downloaded their app, they said they are only doing so as part of a limited testing phase prior to launching their own messaging service and not to deliberately expose users to fraud. The Facebook app running on Android is authorized to process, read, receive and write SMS, something they have declared in their terms beginning from the 1.7 version. Facebook said this is in anticipation of new features that will integrate Facebook tools with user texts. Now, if Facebook eventually introduces a feature that will be applicable to those permissions, they are ensuring the users even now that it will be accompanied by proper educational and guiding materials. Facebook retorted that users should be aware that it said it might access their messages, contained under "Permissions" - that long article you are expected to have read before downloading/using the app. Unfortunately, 70% of smartphone users do not seem to have the time for reading the terms and conditions attached to an app. Other popular companies that are using smartphones to access data and other personal details of users include Yahoo Messenger, Badoo, Google and Flickr. Several companies can reportedly control smartphone features remotely, which includes taking images and video using the camera, as in the case of YouTube. Also, details like contacts list, location and browser history are accessed and can be passed on to third-parties like advertisers. According to a statement issued by Facebook, it does not read user text messages and described the Sunday Times report as 'completely wrong' on their terminology and the impression they have made. But Facebook gave an explanation anyway: "…we have done some testing of pr

Springhill Group : Facebook might be reading your text messages The online community is all abuzz on Sunday after an explosive report has accused Facebook of snooping in smartphone users' text messages. Though Facebook admitted to reading SMS of users who have downloaded their app, they said they are only doing so as part of a limited testing phase prior to launching their own messaging service and not to deliberately expose users to fraud. The Facebook app running on Android is authorized to process, read, receive and write SMS, something they have declared in their terms beginning from the 1.7 version. Facebook said this is in anticipation of new features that will integrate Facebook tools with user texts. Now, if Facebook eventually introduces a feature that will be applicable to those permissions, they are ensuring the users even now that it will be accompanied by proper educational and guiding materials. Facebook retorted that users should be aware that it said it might access their messages, contained under "Permissions" - that long article you are expected to have read before downloading/using the app. Unfortunately, 70% of smartphone users do not seem to have the time for reading the terms and conditions attached to an app. Other popular companies that are using smartphones to access data and other personal details of users include Yahoo Messenger, Badoo, Google and Flickr. Several companies can reportedly control smartphone features remotely, which includes taking images and video using the camera, as in the case of YouTube. Also, details like contacts list, location and browser history are accessed and can be passed on to third-parties like advertisers. According to a statement issued by Facebook, it does not read user text messages and described the Sunday Times report as 'completely wrong' on their terminology and the impression they have made. But Facebook gave an explanation anyway: "…we have done some testing of pr

Springhill Group : Facebook might be reading your text messages The online community is all abuzz on Sunday after an explosive report has accused Facebook of snooping in smartphone users' text messages. Though Facebook admitted to reading SMS of users who have downloaded their app, they said they are only doing so as part of a limited testing phase prior to launching their own messaging service and not to deliberately expose users to fraud. The Facebook app running on Android is authorized to process, read, receive and write SMS, something they have declared in their terms beginning from the 1.7 version. Facebook said this is in anticipation of new features that will integrate Facebook tools with user texts. Now, if Facebook eventually introduces a feature that will be applicable to those permissions, they are ensuring the users even now that it will be accompanied by proper educational and guiding materials. Facebook retorted that users should be aware that it said it might access their messages, contained under "Permissions" - that long article you are expected to have read before downloading/using the app. Unfortunately, 70% of smartphone users do not seem to have the time for reading the terms and conditions attached to an app. Other popular companies that are using smartphones to access data and other personal details of users include Yahoo Messenger, Badoo, Google and Flickr. Several companies can reportedly control smartphone features remotely, which includes taking images and video using the camera, as in the case of YouTube. Also, details like contacts list, location and browser history are accessed and can be passed on to third-parties like advertisers. According to a statement issued by Facebook, it does not read user text messages and described the Sunday Times report as 'completely wrong' on their terminology and the impression they have made. But Facebook gave an explanation anyway: "…we have done some testin