Entries for April 2008

As the banking industry wobbled in the face of a debilitating credit crisis, bank robbers reported strong results for the third quarter (July 1 through September 30) of 2007.

The FBI reported 1,578 violations of the Federal Bank Robbery and Incidental Crimes Statute during the period, with thieves walking away with $19,769,819.51 of loot. So far, only $2,209,768.06 has been recovered.

For one determined fraudster, homeowners' deaths became a reason to celebrate.

Thirty-five-year-old Duane McKinney of Washington, D.C., could face up to 108 months in prison after he was found guilty last week of involvement in a scheme to fraudulently obtain property titles and sell them as if they were his own.

Although prosecutors urged a federal judge to give actor Wesley Snipes the maximum three-year prison sentence for tax violations—a request that was ultimately granted—the court had additional materials to consider when deciding on a sentence.

Among those were a stack of character references submitted on Snipes's behalf that describe the actor as a man of strong character and integrity (.pdf).

Turns out there are things you can get in the mail from your lender that are even less desirable than bills. Just ask LendingTree's mortgage customers from October 2006 through early 2008, who received the following surprise this week:

April 21, 2008

Dear LendingTree Customer:

We want you to know that some loan request forms our customers sent to LendingTree may have been seen by lenders without our consent. These lenders then used the forms to market their own mortgage loans to our customers. While we don't believe that the forms were used for any other purpose, we want you to know what happened and what we did to correct this situation, as well as what you can do to monitor your credit records.

With the wounds of tax season still fresh, it's OK to feel a little warm and fuzzy about this one. Just two days after the April 15 tax filing deadline, former Internal Revenue Service agent Harry Willner was sentenced to a year in jail for his role in a fraudulent tax scheme. [Thanks, White Collar Crime Prof Blog]

According to the Justice Department, in addition to his job at the IRS, Willner also served as an officer for NIA Advertising. In 2002, the company reported hundreds of thousands of dollars in net operating losses. From the Department of Justice:

There was a time when you only had to worry about a potential lover breaking your heart. Now it seems that you've got to keep your eyes on your bank account, too.

As Americans have turned in greater numbers to the Internet in search of love, scammers have found a fresh batch of potential victims and created a new field of fraudulent activity: "romance fraud: a scam designed to prey on [people's] emotions to get [their] money," CNN reports.

Despite growing concern about more sophisticated crimes, financial institutions still have to protect themselves from old-fashioned bank robberies.

Just ask the Department of Justice, which last week charged 20-year-old Christina Dasrath—a teller at a bank branch in New York City—in connection with a pair of apparent robberies.