Mortgage Fraud Crackdown TAMPA (WUSF) - Thirty people in the Tampa area were charged Tuesday with mortgage fraud. It's part of a larger, federal investigation that included many of Florida's major cities like Orlando and Jacksonville. Mortgage brokers, realtors and even some bank officials were arrested and could end up behind bars for up to 30 years if convicted.

Federal investigators called their crackdown a "surge" not because it was combat, but because of the added federal and state manpower focused on mortgage fraud over the last nine months.

"I took extra resources from my offices," said A. Brian Albritton, U.S. Attorney the Middle District of Florida. "The FBI did, other law enforcement agencies did, we took them from other prosecutorial priorities and poured them into this problem and this intensive effort to get our arms around it. We just weren't willing to wait."

Albritton said typically his office prosecutes about 10 such cases a year. But because of the "Mortgage Fraud Surge," 105 people have been arrested and face prosecution and that's just in the district that runs from Jacksonville to Tampa and Ft. Myers.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for Florida's middle district led the crackdown, but mortgage fraud is so complex the investigation spanned 15 different agencies.

Tracey Montano is the Assistant Special Agent in charge of the Tampa field office for the Internal Revenue Service.

"When you look at one of the examples of the cases we've charged here, you use the words bribery and kickbacks," Montano said. "And when you talk about Internal Revenue Service financial crime, money we will always be there."

Prosecutors say the fraudulent loans totaled more than $400 million and involved more than 700 properties.
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