Let's imagine a purely hypothetical situation...

Let's examine hypothetical situation. Let's say we have a guy with a good credit history that's unemployed and down on his luck. After several years of not being able to find gainful employment he decides to go rogue.  First he purchases a home for nearly $150,000 more than his next door neighbor who purchased the identical home at the same time.  Next, he sells his identity and credit to make some money, he then hooks up with some people that are in the "game" and proceeds to do some deals. First he sells his credit for the purpose of obtaining a loan on a boat that doesn't exist and splits the proceeds with the fraudsters. Once that deal is complete, they then use his identity for a six figure home bust out, once the mortgage is approved and ready to close, the man who sold his identity then goes ahead and claims that his identity was stolen for the boat purchase. Sweet. 11 days later the group closes the fraudulent home deal and cashes out nearly $400K. The same day this closing is occurring the man who sold his identity and credit is sitting at the County Economic Crimes units office giving a statement for the boat identity theft case. Then a month later, he goes ahead and calls the cops again saying his identity was stolen again for the purpose of obtaining a fraudulent mortgage on a home that the fraudsters busted out. 

With me so far?  Add into the mix a group of community activists, realtors and journalists from the area that the home was busted out in that are furious and fed up with all of the real estate fraud going on in their area.  Now lets introduce a task force that's made up of people from local government, local police and concerned members of the real estate industry all who have had their task force highly publicized and claim that they're going to come down on real estate fraud with an iron fist.  Imagine what would happen if the first group of concerned citizens went to one of the Task Force's meetings and started raising a fuss over the task forces inaction towards the rampant fraud that's going on in their community that's ruining property values, increasing property taxes and leaving empty homes that are in disrepair in their neighborhood.  Now, this creates a bit of a conundrum for the task force members, some of which are trying to win tens of millions of dollars from the federal government so that they can sell a nationwide mortgage fraud task force modeled after their own task force and possibly garner some sort of position on this nationwide task force.  With the one year anniversary of the task forces first arrests, the task force is slipping from the public conscience and needs a headline case not only to prove that they're still relevant but also to help push through the legislation for the creation of the nationwide task force.

Now, a case comes along that has everything needed to make "Joe Citizen" who's reading about it in the paper shake his head and thank god that this task force exists, let's say for example it went like this...

• Victim gets his identity stolen for a nearly half a million dollar fraud (that's a great number that will get peoples eyes rolling).
• Everyone involved in the fraud is young and Hispanic (you know those Latins are crooks!)
• The attorney whose office closed the transaction is young and successful (how could she be if she wasn't a crook?)!
• Home was purchased just a week before the fraud occurred for a third of what the fraudsters sold it for (they must be guilty, anyone making money must have done something wrong).

Doesn't that make for the perfect story to sell to the media if your trying to prove the relevance of this task force?

Now, the word goes down the line to the rookie Detective on the street and to the "Veteran" prosecutor that are working on this case to bring it in ASAP no matter what.  All sorts of details are overlooked, documents fabricated, testimony manipulated, etc in effort to bring in the case on a deadline.  Regardless of how the case was put together, the task force gets its case on the anniversary of its first arrests, there's a media blitz, the task force once again becomes relevant in peoples minds, it's members and creators get all sorts of accolades, federal money comes rolling in and life is wonderful.  It's a feel good moment and now we're winning the fight against mortgage fraud!  Sort of like this...

Ya think?  We'll see where it went wrong tomorrow...