SXU instructors teach mortgage fraud seminar at Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Cover various methods of mortgage fraud, highlighting recent cases investigated by the Chicago Police Department

Chicago (April 10, 2008) Two Saint Xavier University instructors recently taught a seminar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago about various methods of mortgage fraud and its interplay with identity theft, highlighting recent cases investigated by the Chicago Police Department.

William Kresse and Chicago Police Detective Sergeant John Lucki led the seminar at the LaSalle Street headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, while additional federal bank examiners participated via conference line from branch offices in Des Moines and Detroit.

Kresse is assistant professor in the Graham School of Management and director of its graduate programs in financial fraud examination and management. Lucki is an adjunct professor at the Graham School of Management.

Kresse and Lucki were invited to speak to the federal bank examiners by the Supervision and Regulation Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, which sponsored the seminar. The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is one of 12 regional Reserve Banks that, along with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., make up the nation's central bank.

Using data gleaned from their continuing study of identity theft in the City of Chicago, Kresse and Lucki discussed the means and extent to which identity theft has contributed to mortgage fraud and the current situation in the banking industry.

“While the subprime crisis has most directly affected the banking industry, including giants like Bear Stearns, the crisis has generated ripples that have buffeted the U.S. economy from many directions,” said Kresse. “Banking and regulatory officials must understand, ferret out, and prevent the various frauds that greatly contributed to this crisis if faith in the American economy is to be restored.”

Funded by the Institute for Fraud Prevention, the Saint Xavier University Study of Identity Theft in the City of Chicago is the most extensive academic study of actual cases of identity theft ever conducted. Kresse, Lucki, and Kathleen Watland, Ed.D., assistant professor in the Graham School of Management, are the principle researchers of the Chicago Identity Theft Study. The complete Saint Xavier University/Chicago Police Department study is available at the Institute’s website: www.theifp.org.

Kresse is the director and chief architect of the financial fraud examination and management graduate program at Saint Xavier University’s Graham School of Management, currently the only classroom-based MBA program in financial fraud examination and identity theft in the country. The 40,000-member Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the world’s leading organization for anti-fraud professionals, recently named Kresse its “Educator of the Year.”

Saint Xavier offers the program, which combines law enforcement, law, accounting and general business education, at its Chicago campus, at the Chicago Bar Association building in the Loop and at the Chicago Police Academy. The U.S. Air Force and Chicago Police Department have both chosen the program to better train their agents and officers in identity theft and financial and procurement fraud.

-SXU-

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Contact: Rick Ducat
773-298-3325 or ducat@sxu.edu