by Calculated Risk on 10/15/2009 10:13:00 PM

This includes lawyers, mortgage brokers, and loan officers ...

From the NY Times: 41 Charged With Widespread Mortgage Fraud

Federal prosecutors announced charges on Thursday against 41 lenders, lawyers and others in the real estate industry who they said used fraud to obtain more than $64 million in loans connected to more than 100 residential properties in New York State.
....
[One case involved] a Bronx real estate company called MTC, 10 people were accused of participating in a $5.6 million “foreclosure rescue” scheme in which they sought out troubled mortgage holders facing foreclosure, running radio ads in which they presented themselves as saviors.

An indictment said that the defendants in that case ... duped troubled homeowners into selling their properties at low prices or persuaded them to transfer the deeds to their homes, promising to help solve their financial problems and then return the properties.

Instead, prosecutors said, Ms. Bills and other defendants flipped those properties to straw buyers at inflated prices subsidized by unaffordable loans that the defendants persuaded lenders to issue based on false documentation.

It is hard to believe how callous and greedy some people are (assuming the charges are true).