Nine are charged with mortgage fraud

Eight men and one woman were arrested in Britain Tuesday on fraud charges connected to a mortgage brokerage, authorities said.

We know that fraud has the potential to impact on local communities and we are determined … to work with colleagues across the U.K. to investigate such frauds, Detective Superintendent Bob Wishart of the City of London Police said.

The allegations center on an East Sussex, England, mortgage brokerage called Eastbourne Financial Services Ltd.

The Times said surveyors, solicitors, developers and a bank official were arrested.

The mortgages were provide by Bradford & Bingley, which has been cooperating in the investigation, The Times said.

The case involves buy-to-let fraud, in which property values are inflated, then bought for less than the advertised value with the fraudulent sellers pocketing the difference.

As house prices continue to fall, there will be more and more of these cases surfacing, said Brian Dilley, a partner at KPMG Forensic.