TOPICS > Politics  Mortgage Fraud Sweep Nets Hundreds of Arrests
June 19, 2008 at 6:10 PM EST Loading the player... The Justice
Department and the FBI announced hundreds of arrests Thursday
for mortgage fraud, which is blamed for sparking a national
credit crisis and nationwide housing crisis. An NPR
correspondent and Columbia Law professor examine the government
crackdown.   JUDY WOODRUFF: The government’s crackdown on
mortgage fraud. Ray Suarez has our story.  RAY SUAREZ: It was
just about a year ago when the collapse of two large hedge funds
first alerted Wall Street and the broader public to a subprime
meltdown already under way.  The failure of those Bear Stearns
funds foreshadowed what was to come: hundreds of billions of
dollars in mortgage-backed losses around the world; record
foreclosures in a number of communities; a bailout of Bear
Stearns; and the beginning of a larger credit crisis throughout
the financial system.  Early this morning, the federal
government indicted the two former hedge fund ma