Feds crackdown on mortgage fraud - WKOW 27: Madison, WI Breaking News, Weather and Sports

WASHINGTON (WKOW) -- The federal government says its program to fight mortgage fraud is working.

Attorney General Eric Holder says in the year since the launch of the "Distressed Homeowner Initiative", the Justice Department has filed 285 criminal indictments over predatory and fraudulent loans.

That's helped more than 91,000 vulnerable homeowners.

"We made progress. we are clearly seeing fewer families fall in foreclosure but the importance of today is not just the success we've had, but the message that we are sending that we are out there we are watching," said Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan.

The Justice Department says the loan fraud and predatory lending cases in just the past year bilked Americans out of more than a billion dollars.