Feds Flood Vegas In Search Of Mortgage Scams, Create Task Force

In Las Vegas, Nevada, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports:

• Mortgage fraud and associated predatory lending practices have become the focus of criminal investigations in Las Vegas, which is quickly emerging as the mortgage fraud capital of America. "The FBI has come to Las Vegas in droves," said Debra March, director of the Lied Institute for Real Estate Studies at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "I've never seen this many FBI people here." The FBI has carried out a number of investigations in Las Vegas, uncovering schemes involving 14 financial institutions. Some of the tactics include artificially inflating home values and forcing desperate buyers into adjustable rate mortgages that they eventually can't afford.

For more, see LV at center of mortgage-fraud bull's-eye (Official says feds come 'in droves' to investigate chicanery).

See also, Reuters: FBI starts Nevada mortgage-fraud task force.