FBI lacks agents to probe financial crimes

It was reported this week that the "FBI lacks agents to probe financial crimes." Crimes of the modern era have migrated to complex finance, geography-less domains of electronic trading. The article relates that the FBI must hire more, or repurpose FBI agents to White Collar Crime investigation. From the Associated Press, WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US Federal Bureau of Investigation lacks agents and resources to investigate white-collar financial crime because of personnel cuts and a shift in the agency's focus on terrorism, The New York Times reported Sunday. Citing current and former FBI officials, the newspaper said that since the September 11, 2001, attacks the bureau had shifted more than 1,800 agents, or nearly one-third of all agents in criminal programs, to terrorism and intelligence duties. "Clearly, we have felt the effects of moving resources from criminal investigations to national security," said The Times quotes John Miller, an assistant director at the FBI as saying. "In white-collar crime, while we initiated fewer cases over all, we targeted the areas where we could have the biggest impact." The Times report follows a series of US government moves to prop up failing banks weighed down by faltering mortgage loans and other financial woes. Key US data showed starts on building new homes slumped an additional 6.3 percent in September to the lowest level since the 1991 recession, the latest evidence of the burst housing bubble that shook the US economy and triggered the global financial crisis.
According to The Times, the FBI is now under pressure to investigate some of the largest players in the financial collapse, including mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
It is planning to double the number of agents working on financial crimes, the report said, but some people inside and outside the justice department wonder where the agents will come from.
According to FBI data, the cutbacks have been particularly severe in staffing for investigations into white-collar crimes like mortgage fraud, the paper said. These units lost a total of 625 agents, or 36 percent of their 2001 levels. Overall, the number of criminal cases brought by the FBI to federal prosecutors dropped 26 percent in the last seven years, the report said.

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