The Los Angeles Times reports that real estate fraud has reached unprecedented levels. The FBI reports that the number of cases has tripled in the last two years.

That, of course, is the result of the boom, or bubble, in the real estate business. Mortgage fraud has also been boosted by the unprecedented number of refinancings that have occurred while interest rates have remained low.

And, say experts, the real numbers are much higher because so much goes unreported.

Over the last three decades, mortgage brokers have become major players but the regulations were written in the era when banks were the only financing option. So the mortgage brokers are where most of the problems are to be found.

“We’ve got to do something to better protect the consumer,” John Marcell Jr., an Upland, Calif., broker who is president of the California Assn. of Mortgage Brokers tells the Times. “We need better education, and better policing.”

One California broker made millions defrauding lenders, not the borrowers. In fact, the firm got hefty finder’s fees that were split with homeowners who happily went through the paper work to to pay their mortgages for a couple of months.

Can there be a similar problem in Nevada? The Legislature tightened up mortgage regulation in the last session but our housing boom seems tailor-made for the problems reported in the Golden State.