Quantcast
Channel: MiamiHerald.com: Borrowers Betrayed
Browsing all 18 articles
Browse latest View live

Thousands with criminal records work unlicensed as loan originators

Gary Kafka, former body builder with a long rap sheet and violent past, wrote millions of dollars in mortgages in South Florida without ever applying for a state license.

View Article



Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Ex-convicts active in mortgage fraud

When Scott Almeida walked out of federal prison and into the mortgage business, he took a gamble. He admitted on his license application that he had been convicted of cocaine trafficking.

View Article

Who's watching the brokers

The Office of Financial Regulation was created by the Florida Legislature to oversee the state's banks and securities and mortgage industries. This includes licensing mortgage brokers and mortgage...

View Article

About the Herald investigation

The Miami Herald spent eight months examining the Office of Financial Regulation, the state agency responsible for regulating the mortgage industry in Florida.

View Article

For license renewals in Florida, no criminal background checks

At least 20 Florida mortgage brokers maintained their licenses even after committing the most obvious violation of public trust -- mortgage fraud.

View Article


Mortgage regulator's resignation sought

Florida's chief financial officer called for the state's top mortgage regulator, Don Saxon, to resign after a Miami Herald report that his agency issued licenses to thousands of people with criminal...

View Article

States act to license loan originators

To Illinois mortgage regulator Dean Martinez, too many loan people peddled home loans without licenses.

View Article

State let crooked brokers keep working

When state regulators showed up at Samantha Johnson's mortgage company, she had already stolen her first house.

View Article


Identity theft is no bar to keeping a broker license

Mortgage broker Brahms Alexis kept his state license for almost three years, even after Florida regulators and federal agents dragged him away from a closing in handcuffs.

View Article


What They're Saying

--Don Saxon, the state's top mortgage industry regulator, said prosecutors routinely ask his agency not to revoke the license when a broker is the target of a criminal probe, "the last thing we would...

View Article

Showdown over criminal brokers is imminent

Amid mounting criticism of his leadership, Florida's top mortgage industry regulator promised Monday to find out why his agency allowed thousands of people with criminal histories to sell home loans...

View Article

A criminal past, a trail of new victims

Eighty-three-year-old W.C. Eckles limps around the outside of his house, pointing to the holes in his walls. He stuffs them with rags. He covers them with plywood. But wind, rain and mosquitoes still...

View Article

Florida regulators shun licensing for loan originators

With Florida's housing boom revving up, Joseph Falk, the national mortgage industry's top leader, went to Florida regulators in 2002 with an urgent plea: License all mortgage professionals.

View Article


Home loan racket flourished in Florida

Orson Benn, once a vice president at the nations largest subprime lender, spent three years during the height of the housing boom tutoring Florida mortgage brokers in the art of fraud.

View Article

Case files of brokers

<a href="http://miamiherald.com/news/borrowers-betrayed"> < Click here to return to the full series</a> <br />

View Article


<center><a href="http://miamiherald.com/news/borrowers-betrayed">Click here to return to the series</a></center> <img...

View Article

<center><a href="http://miamiherald.com/news/borrowers-betrayed">Click here to return to the series</a></center> <img...

View Article


Loan legacy: vacancy, vandalism, foreclosure

Decaying and neglected homes are Orson Benn's legacy in Miami-Dade County, where the New York lender and his associates at Argent Mortgage wrote $349 million in loans on nearly 2,000 properties.

View Article
Browsing all 18 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images