Ex-Utah mayoral candidate charged with real estate fraud: The Utah Attorney General’s Office charged a former Eagle Mountain mayoral candidate with fraud on Wednesday. Richard Culbertson, 55, and his wife Kathleen Culbertson, 51, were charged in a mortgage fraud case in which they allegedly used their daughter and son-in-law’s names to buy a home. According to the Attorney General’s Office, the Culbertsons used someone else’s names to obtain multiple home loans and also inflated their income on applications by more than $10,000 per month. One loan was earmarked for remodeling and landscaping work, but the $59,324 was pocketed by Richard Culbertson instead.

Squatters, scams plague foreclosures: Call them signs of a tattered economy - indicators that something’s amiss including in the San Fernando Valley: squatters inhabiting foreclosed homes, a record number of cars being repossessed, a growing number of family heirlooms being left behind at local pawn shops. With more than 80,000 foreclosures in California during the last quarter of 2007 setting a state record - up 115 percent over the previous year - property owners have struggled to keep squatters and thieves off their vacant properties.

Sacramento realty fraud unit’s funds decline; complaints rise: The funding for real estate fraud investigations and prosecutions has dwindled to the lowest level since 2001 in Sacramento County, even as the two detectives who investigate the crimes say they’re fielding a mounting number of complaints. In real estate fraud units, investigators’ and prosecutors’ salaries are funded with $2 fees paid each time certain deeds are filed in the county recorder’s office. The real estate downturn corresponds with a nose dive in the recording fees. In fiscal 2001, the county collected $460,000 in such fees, but is now on track to collect only about $400,000 by the time this fiscal year ends in June.

Pennsylvania official pushes mortgage reforms: The state’s top banking regulator is pushing a slate of reform measures to end predatory lending, staunch mortgage fraud and foreclosures across the state. “We’re hoping the (reform) package will be completed and become law sometime this year,” said Steven Kaplan, secretary of banking. “Pennsylvania consumers need more protection from mortgage fraud.” Mortgage fraud in the Pittsburgh area was highlighted a month ago when 24 people were charged with operating lending scams by the U.S. Attorney General’s office here. It is conducting more than 50 mortgage-fraud examinations as part of its newly formed Western Pennsylvania Mortgage Fraud Task Force.

New York politicians offer a good first step: It’s too soon to declare New York’s subprime mortgage crisis over and done with - an estimated 28,000 New Yorkers statewide remain at risk of losing their homes to foreclosure - but Gov. Spitzer and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo this week announced reforms that will make it much harder to repeat the abuses of recent years. At the root of the mortgage crisis was the tendency of bankers, brokers, appraisers and other real estate professionals to bend lending rules and home price estimates to the breaking point in order to book loans and walk off with lucrative fees. In many cases, people without sufficient income to repay a loan ended up with mortgages - only to fall behind on payments and lose their homes.

Indictment names four Texans in mortgage fraud case: A federal grand jury in Houston has indicted four people in connection with a $15 million mortgage fraud scheme carried out over four years, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Wednesday. According to the indictment, Carlos Paul Gonzalez and Ken Russell Browder, who ran Advantage C&R Funding Group and First Advantage Funding Group, would find people with good credit to pose as home buyers and apply for mortgages. Though the borrowers didn’t qualify for the loans and didn’t plan to live in the homes, the applications were doctored to gain approval from lenders, the indictment alleges. The homes were spread throughout the Houston area, according to the indictment.

Real Estate and Mortgage fraud is funding crime in the United Kingdom: The UK’s Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) says property sales are also being used launder money made from drugs, trafficking and prostitution. Average UK mortgage fraud losses are £700m a year and the figure is growing. False valuations and bogus applications were among the methods used, said the intelligence report being sent to the financial industry and police forces.

Michigan AG’s ties to mortgage firms may explain inaction on foreclosures: Evidence is surfacing that home loan institutions have, based on demographic studies, steered minority homeowners into high-risk subprime mortgages. That opens the door to possible prosecution of civil rights violations in addition to the abuse of fair lending laws. With calls increasing for state attorney generals to sue guilty lenders, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox may be compromised. His list of campaign contributors includes a number of mortgage interests.

25 Indicted in Chicago mortgage fraud scheme: Federal authorities have charged 25 people in what is considered one of the largest mortgage fraud schemes in Chicago area history. Following a four-year investigation, the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s office alleged in three indictments that more than 150 homes were involved in fraudulent mortgage transactions worth $25 million.

Colorado real estate agents get lesson in fraud: Summit County, Colorado, real estate agents got a lesson in identity theft prevention this week at a workshop detailing a nationwide problem quickly seeping into the industry. Janet Elkins, a fraud specialist at Alpine Bank, gave a quick tutorial on how individuals can prevent against identity theft, as well as how business can make smarter choices to prevent thieves from getting their foot in the door.

Ogden, Utah, businessman charged with real-estate fraud: The Utah Attorney General’s Office has filed criminal charges against an Ogden businessman accused of bilking hundreds of investors out of more than $140 million. Val Edmund Southwick, 62, was charged in Salt Lake City’s 3rd District Court today with nine counts of securities fraud, a second-degree felony. Prosecutors accuse him of bilking 817 investors out of millions in a commercial real-estate investment scheme. The federal Securities and Exchange Commission filed a separate civil action against Southwick over his Ogden-based business, VesCor Capital, which it alleges was a “massive Ponzi scheme.”

State cracks down on mortgage brokers: Colorado regulators Friday announced their first actions against mortgage brokers under a new set of state laws aimed at curbing unscrupulous lending practices. In one case, the state’s Division of Real Estate issued a cease-and-desist order against Cade Emerson Lee, who it accused of acting as an unregistered mortgage broker in Colorado despite having been convicted of felony securities fraud.

Mortgage fraud spiraling out of control in London, England: “Endemic” mortgage fraud on new homes has triggered a wave of repossessions and forced a widespread crackdown by regulatory authorities. Initiatives to address lenders’ concerns that residential mortgage fraud is on the rise are either under way or will be launched by the Council of Mortgage Lenders, Financial Services Authority–the City watchdog–the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and police forces around the country.

Michigan tax accountant sentenced in $21 million mortgage fraud case: A Dearborn Heights, Michigan, tax accountant, convicted of stealing $21 million in a mortgage fraud scheme, was sentenced in federal court Thursday to five years in prison. U.S. District Judge David Lawson sentenced tax accountant Kalil Khalil, 36, to 60 months in prison for wire fraud based on a two-and-a-half-year scheme to defraud mortgage lenders.

Kingpin of $30M mortgage fraud scam in Canada jailed: The kingpin of a $30-million mortgage fraud believed to be the largest in Alberta (Canada) history was sentenced Thursday to six years in prison. Gohar (Carmen) Ahmed Pervez, 45, pleaded guilty to 54 counts of fraud that netted him more than $1.8 million in profit in less than five years. He received two-for-one credit for the two years he has served in the remand centre and is now slated to spend two more years behind bars.

Texas couple indicted for $3 million real estate fraud: A Navarro County, Texas, grand jury handed down indictments against three individuals Thursday, in connection with what prosecutors are calling “an organized mortgage fraud scheme.” Lynn Marriott, 54, and Kandace Y. Marriott, 51, both of Gun Barrel City, along with Karen Hayes, 56, of Kemp, were indicted for the first degree felony. Cpl. Mark Nanny of the Corsicana Police Department uncovered the operation, subsequently bringing in the Housing and Urban Development department (HUD) to the investigation. The defendants were doing business as One Way Home & Land, dealing with manufactured housing. Prosecutors allege the company falsified residential loan applications in order to assure the buyers’ loans were approved by mortgage lenders.