Published on 10th October 2012
Wells Fargo engaged in a long-standing practice of reckless and fraudulent mortgage lending that cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance claims when those loans went bad, federal prosecutors alleged Tuesday. In a civil lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, government lawyers accused the San Francisco-based bank of concealing the true nature of at least 6,320 shoddy mortgages that were insured by the Federal Housing Administration. The government is seeking unspecified civil penalties that could reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars. [The Washington Post]