MIAMI – June 20, 2008 – Federal officials blasted the real estate industry on Thursday for not doing enough to prevent rampant fraud within its own ranks.

At least 22 people in Miami-Dade have been arrested on federal mortgage fraud charges in recent weeks, U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said. They’re accused of stealing more than $37 million from homeowners and banks.

That pushes the total to 102 people charged since a federal task force started work in South Florida in September. Losses in those cases exceed $132 million, Acosta said.

Those numbers do not include dozens arrested by state and local law enforcement in recent months.

Since the collapse of the housing market last summer, mortgage fraud has joined public corruption and healthcare fraud as federal investigators’ top priorities, said Tim Delaney, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami office.

“One of the aspects of most mortgage fraud schemes that is so troubling, is that it depends on the collusion of industry insiders,” Delaney said during a news conference at the U.S. Attorney’s office. “In most cases, one person cannot perpetrate the fraud.”

Among those charged this week are real estate appraisers, title agents, bank employees and lawyers.

“I think the industry really needs to examine how to ensure that its own employees, its agents and appraisers, are not engaged in fraud,” Acosta said.

Florida leads the nation in “suspicious activity reports,” which is what banks file to notify authorities of possibly fraudulent loan applications.

In 2007, there were 47,000 SARs reported in Florida. In 2003, there were only 7,000, Delaney said. That’s an increase of more than 570 percent.

In Washington on Thursday, federal officials announced that 400 real estate industry insiders have been indicted since March. The FBI put losses to homeowners and other borrowers in those schemes at over $1 billion.

Copyright © 2008 The Miami Herald, Jack Dolan. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.