The number of mortgage fraud cases has grown so fast that government agencies that investigate and prosecute them cannot keep up, lenders and law enforcement officials have said.

Reports of suspected mortgage fraud have doubled since 2005 and increased eightfold since 2002. Banks filed 47,717 reports this year, up from 21,994 two years ago, according to statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the Treasury Department. In 2002, banks filed 5,623 reports.

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THE Dow soared 200 points in a Christmas rush on Friday that belied emerging details that US banking, mortgage companies and credit rating faced collapse while the nation’s mortgage insurance industry plunged into chaos.

Nearly 180,000 US local councils were placed on credit watch, with the credit agency Fitch releasing another $US5.3 billion in credit downgrades involving 27 mortgage companies. The news emerged on Friday night, when the nation’s newspapers, even if they were following the story, would miss it.

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