Last week, the FBI nabbed its first target in a new arena of fraud: stealing from the government’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. There’s no shortage of work for FBI agents handling white-collar-crime cases in New York City, reports Forbes. Mortgage fraud is on the rise, as are bogus job counseling services and frauds conducted over the Internet. Since the financial crisis erupted in 2008, the FBI’s 1,000-agent New York office has tripled its mortgage fraud investigations squad and beefed up its securities and financial fraud group.
Unit leader Peter Grupe says his team is trying to detect frauds earlier by making use of the resources of the FBI’s intelligence group, with a particular focus on cyber crimes. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center says it received 336,655 fraud complaints last year related to financial losses of $560 million, double the dollar amount reported the year before. “With the sophistication in technology you’re going to see more sophisticated crimes,” Grupe said. Forbes surveys the latest in major white-collar-crime trends.