Local, state and federal prosecutors yesterday issued a warning to the subprime lending industry and punctuated it with two dozen criminal indictments for mortgage fraud.

Flanked by officials from the state attorney general's office, postal inspectors, the IRS and the county sheriff, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan announced a joint task force to look into what she said is widening evidence of fraud in the region.

"We are looking at certain people within the industry who have helped to perpetrate hundreds of frauds," she said at an afternoon news conference.

The announcement comes as a meltdown in the subprime mortgage market continues to roil global financial markets, threatening the U.S. economy as hundreds of billions in loans sold as investments on the bond market continue to default.

"This is a very serious criminal activity we're facing here in Western Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, we know that this is just the beginning of many of the cases that we're looking at very closely," said Ms. Buchanan.

The cases unveiled yesterday involved several mortgage service firms in the Pittsburgh area and totaled $13 million in fraud, she said.

The fraud typically involves submitting false information to lenders to obtain loans that otherwise would not have been approved, authorities said.

The indictments handed up by a federal grand jury identified individuals connected with financial services firms in Carnegie, the West End, Pleasant Hills and Monroeville.

The largest indictment accuses 12 people working through Precision Mortgage in Carnegie of participating in a conspiracy involving fraudulent financial condition statements that included verifications of employment, verifications of bank deposits, inflated appraisals, and false pay stubs and W-2 earnings statements.

Accused in that case were Anthony Fields, 38, of Beall Drive, Whitehall; Alice Fields, 28, and Lisa Fields, 33, of Zephyr Avenue, Sheraden; Raymond Fields, 26, formerly of Beall Drive, Whitehall; Randy Carretta, 44, of Margaret Street, Whitehall; Jason Jester, 38, of Theresa Avenue, South Park; Aaron McCarthy, 43, of Knox Avenue, Knoxville; Andrea Revak, 47, of Oakleaf Road, Baldwin Borough; Joyce Davern, 66, and Kelly Fields, 35, both of Beall Drive, Whitehall; Sabrina Stetter, 46, formerly of Zara Street, Knoxville; and Wayne Fumea, 61, of Blairsville, Indiana County.

Another case focuses on fraud prosecutors say took place at Pope Financial Services and Sprouts Mortgage. In separate but related indictments, the grand jury accused Michael McFerron Pope, 43, of Aetna Drive, Upper St. Clair; Marlin Sprouts Jr., 52, of Uniontown; and James Spike, 43, of Republic, Fayette County, of mortgage fraud conspiracy. Grand jurors also accused Mr. Pope of two counts of money laundering.

Similar charges previously were filed against Tiffany Sprouts, who had a financial services company in the same office building as Mr. Sprouts. She has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.

The quartet are accused of recruiting six straw buyers who filed fraudulent mortgage applications to purchase properties the accused had picked out for them to buy.

Mr. Pope and Ms. Sprouts also are accused of temporarily depositing funds into the bank accounts of the straw buyers to fool lenders into thinking they had sufficient assets to qualify for the loans and make down payments. The indictments say properties involved in the scam are in Peters and Upper St. Clair.

Six others were charged in what the grand jury said was a mortgage scam run out of People's Home Mortgage in the city's West End. Among charges in that case, along with filing false financial information on customers who sought loans, was an accusation that they used unlicensed appraisers to establish the values of properties being purchased.

Accused in that case are Sharon Chamberlain, 39, of Westpointe Drive, Robinson; Colleen Chiavetta, 35, and John Chiavetta, 68, both of McCoy Road, Stowe; Erika Stanford, 34, of Lindsay Road, Scott; Aaron Thompson, 32, of Grace Street, Crafton; and Leon Truskowski, 37, of McCoy Road, Stowe.

Another indictment named Daniel Gillen, 40, of Shady Drive East, Mt. Lebanon, who had been an employee of People's Home. Along with Ann Tonkovich, of Fombell, Beaver County, Mr. Gillen was accused of working through another firm, T&T Financial, to submit fraudulent loan applications as well as using unlicensed appraisers to estimate home values.

In both the T&T and People's cases, Mr. Gillen also is accused of acting as an appraiser without a license.

Two other firms, America's Mortgage Outlet and Single Source Mortgage, were named as the firms through which yet another defendant, Brian Tray, 51, of South 19th Street, South Side, was accused of submitting fraudulent loan applications that inflated borrowers' incomes, as well as fraudulent property appraisals. William Edgar, owner of America's Mortgage Outlet, was recently sentenced to 37 months in prison for mortgage fraud, the U.S. attorney said.

Law enforcement officials yesterday said a large number of fraudulent mortgages were obtained using what is known as "stated income" -- a good-faith estimate of a person's earnings not based on wage statements.

Such statements are legal, although they were originally intended to account for the incomes of the self-employed or individuals who received a sizable portion of their incomes from nonreceipt sources like restaurant tips.

Yesterday, one member of the task force, David Bleicken of the Pennsylvania Department of Banking, said his agency wants to see the rules for stated income loans tightened.

"We have a regulation that would eliminate them," he said. "That is a huge part of the fraud problem."