California Attorney General Kamala Harris is creating a task force aimed at cracking down on mortgage fraud in the country's largest state, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
The 25-person Mortgage Fraud Strike Force, made up of 17 lawyers and eight special investigators from the state Department of Justice, will pursue three areas of fraud: deceptive lending practices, foreclosure scams and corporate fraud, in which that task force will examine whether mortgage-backed securities were bundled and sold to the state and its pension funds under false pretenses.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Harris said that mortgage fraud led to the housing bust that has severely weakened the state's economy.
"We are looking at a situation of up to $640 billion in wealth having been lost because of this wave of foreclosures that has hit the state," she said.
