The Seattle Times has been reporting a lot of stories lately that are highlighting the mortgage fraud that was going on in the area over the past several years. Today was no exception.  The story of ING Bank suing some local buyers and the businesses that helped them secure fraudulent loans has turned into a full fledged Federal investigation, resulting in today's story.

The Times characterizes this as the state's largest mortgage fraud case.  It includes several players:

"A grand jury issued a 40-count indictment naming two Bellevue mortgage brokers, an Eastside escrow company and an Issaquah real-estate agent in a scheme involving the repeated purchase and resale of Eastside and Seattle-area homes using a succession of paid "straw buyers" or other unqualified borrowers to obtain ever-larger loans they could never pay back, then siphoning money off escrow."

Another ActiveRain member, Peter Mann, had blogged about this escrow firm in the recent past.