FBI Probing 530 Fraud Cases From Financial Meltdown

[babylonsister]

FBI investigating 530 corporate fraud cases

By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer – Wed Feb 11, 11:48 am ET


WASHINGTON – The FBI is conducting more than 500 investigations of corporate fraud amid the financial meltdown, FBI Deputy Director John Pistole told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Investigators are tackling an even bigger mountain of mortgage fraud cases in which hundreds of millions of dollars may have been swindled from the system, he told lawmakers.

Pistole says there are 530 active corporate fraud investigations, and 38 of them involve some of the biggest names in corporate finance in cases directly related to the current economic crisis.

Additionally, the FBI has more than 1,800 mortgage fraud investigations, more than double the number of such cases just two years ago.

There are so many mortgage fraud cases to investigate, he said, that the bureau is not focusing on individual purchasers, but industry professionals generating fraud schemes that could total as much as hundreds of millions of dollars.

more...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090211/ap_on_go_ot/bailout_fraud

[indepat]

1. Let the boys be boys, left to perpetrate their fraudulent schemes on the public, free of

government interference or oversight so they and privatize their ill-gotten gains and their losses can be socialized or, to wit: capitalism, 'puke-style. :P

[renate]

2. this sounds good

I would expect that prosecuting these cases would help people feel more confident that the financial system is being cleaned up and would maybe make them feel more secure about the economy again.

(Whether they'd be right in feeling more confident is a whole different issue... but it does kind of seem that the psychology of crowds and a sort of mass panic is weighing the consumer end of the economy down. That and soaring unemployment, of course. :( )