Police end mortgage fraud with 68 arrests 03/10/2006 00:00

3 October 2006

AMSTERDAM — Police have arrested 68 suspects in a large-scale operation against mortgage and loan fraud involving millions of euros in the Randstad region.

A police spokesman confirmed the report in newspaper 'De Telegraaf' on Tuesday and said the investigation had taken 18 months.
  
Some of the suspects managed to obtain a mortgage without a legal income by forging employer declarations, annual income statements and wage slips. In some cases, the suspects invented companies.

Due to the fact banks and other financial institutes received the repayments — mostly paid by criminal money — on time, some of them did not want to change the situation. In most cases, however, the loans were withdrawn.
 
Police believe they have arrested all of the suspects. "You never know it with certainty, of course, but we think that we have everyone. But we don't rule anything out," a spokesman said.

The suspects included a bank employee, brokers and fraud criminals, but police refused to identify the suspects. They said instead they were money launderers and speculators.

[Copyright Expatica News 2006]

Subject: Dutch news