Normal tech support phone call: "Press 1 for help with e-mail. Press 2 to have your password reset."

Madoff tech support phone call: "Hello, how can I help you dummy up some trading records today?"

The investigation of Bernie Madoff's fraudulent financial empire is leading to more arrests. Jerome O'Hara and George Perez, both computer programmers employed by the Ponzi schemer, were arrested by the FBI on Friday morning. The charges include conspiracy for falsifying books and records. They are accused of doing the deed for the boss and accepting hush money -- in the form of 25% raises and net bonuses of $60,000 -- to keep the scam afloat.

Bernie Madoff is getting used to his new neighbors. Gone are the days of Montauk and Manhattan, and he isn't sharing his space with topless dancers.

Now, he says goodnight to a drug pusher, chills with a former mobster, and hangs with a convicted spy ... and these guys are probably saying, "I hang around with Bernie Madoff." The former financier Ponzi schemer spends his evenings walking laps around the prison track at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex, not far from Raleigh, N.C.

Sam Antar, formerly the CFO of Crazy Eddie, known in the New York area for over-the-top commercials that scared the hell out of kids (well, me at least), knows his way around a questionable balance sheet. For 15 years, he was the executive chef of book-cooking, ultimately taking a guilty plea to conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges. He stayed out of the clink by taking the stand on the government's side at a 1993 trial, ultimately sending his cousin, Eddie Antar to prison for seven years or so.

Crooks make the best cops, so to speak, and Antar is putting his skills to work. He's out hunting for accounting fraud and sending his analyses off to the SEC. On his blog, the former CFO laid out what he called a "bulletproof case" against Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) – a company that the SEC had been investigating since 2006. The inquiry has been reopened.

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) CEO Ken Lewis has managed to survive a massive decline in shareholder value, two government bailouts, a raft of shareholder lawsuits, SEC investigations, civil fraud charges, and a wave of populist angst about the company's business practices.

But now CNBC reports that experts are questioning whether Lewis will be able to hang on as investigations of the company's acquisition of Merrill Lynch intensify. The FBI is reportedly taking a look, which suggests that criminal charges could follow.

The Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) CEO's "What's a Guy Got to Do to Get Fired Around Here" campaign took a new twist this weekend when The New York Post reported that the FBI and the Justice Department were taking a look at his company's controversial acquisition of Merrill Lynch.

That's just the icing on a great week for Mr. Lewis that included a District Court Judge's rejection of the company's settlement with the SEC and a set of subpoenas issued to by the New York attorney general to five of the company's directors. Of course that was nothing compared to Warren Buffett's characterization of Mr. Lewis as an "ironic hero" whose sheer incompetence saved the global financial system while destroying his own company.

According to a report released yesterday, U.S. mortgage fraud reports increased 36% last year. According to the FBI, suspicious activity reports increased to 63,713 during fiscal 2008 from 46,717 a year ago.

California and Florida had the highest number of suspicious reports, which some attribute to the fact that the housing market has dropped and credit has dried up in those regions.

According to the agency, reports filed through March put fraud reports on track to top 70,000 during the current fiscal year ... not a good sign.

Can you believe this! The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating its own employees. It's gotten so bad that the SEC had to establish new rules for employee trading. Right now the SEC has at least two employees under investigation for possible insider trading. The FBI had to be notified and may also be called in to conduct investigations of possible insider trading.

Would you believe that employees can trade the stocks of companies they are investigating? Yes, as of now that's true. So guess what the SEC is doing to correct the problem? They will employ an outside firm to track employee trading in real time. Another new rule will be that employees cannot trade stocks of companies under investigation and will require them to get clearance before making any trade. From this we can infer that employees have been trading stocks of companies under investigation right along.

This post is part of a feature in which we wonder whatever happened to some notorious financial felons. See all 17.

How does the head of one of Archer Daniels Midland's (NYSE: ADM) fastest-growing divisions, a virtual shoo-in to be the company's next president, end up embezzling $9 million dollars while simultaneously acting as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation? And how does the highest-level executive to turn whistleblower receive a sentence much harsher than those of his co-conspirators despite pleas for leniency and clemency from everyone from the FBI and the Justice Department to congressmen, university professors, and even a baseball hall-of-famer?

Sounds like the stuff of motion pictures, doesn't it? And that's exactly what this true story will be in September of 2009 with the release of The Informant, a Warner Brothers film directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Matt Damon as whistleblower turned felon, Mark Whitacre. The movie is based on one of several books written about the case.

When the FBI began an investigation of ADM in 1992, Whitacre admitted that he and other executives were involved in a multinational price-fixing scheme. For the next three years, he helped the FBI gather evidence. Despite that, however, Whitacre was convicted in 1998 for wire fraud, tax evasion, and money laundering. The sentence of more than 10 years in prison was considered excessive by many, given his cooperation with the investigation and the fact that he suffered from bipolar disorder (the pressure drove him to attempt suicide at one point). Whitacre served eight and half years, reportedly as a model prisoner. To this day, efforts continue to win a pardon for Whitacre.

Talking about the seedy side of subprime lending at the height of the bubble seems redundant -- like talking about Jeffrey Dahmer's dark side. But a piece in BusinessWeek looks at an especially sleazy side of the industry: "Dozens of former brokers and wholesalers say the trading of sexual favors was so common that it came to be expected."

Wholesalers reportedly offered loan underwriters sexual favors in exchange for approving questionable mortgage applications.

The scenes described in the piece sounds like something straight out of the movie Boiler Room: brokers sitting in the middle of an office shredding some documents and altering others in plain view of their supervisors and harassment and termination for anyone who protested the illegality.

While there were scattered lawsuits and reports of impropriety while all this was happening, no one really paid attention to it until after the music had stopped. A huge portion of the homeowners who are currently facing foreclosure participated in some form of mortgage fraud that was condoned by industry insiders.

In October of 2004, Chris Swecker, former FBI Assistant Director of the Criminal Investigation Division, told House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity that "The potential impact of mortgage fraud on financial institutions and the stock market is clear. If fraudulent practices become systemic within the mortgage industry and mortgage fraud is allowed to become unrestrained, it will ultimately place financial institutions at risk and have adverse effects on the stock market."

That's exactly what happened, but too much money was being made, and too many lap dances being given, for anyone to care.

I recently talked to a business owner who was in the process of raising capital. To this end, she paid a $20,000 upfront fee to a finder (a person who brokers equity investments and loans).

The result? Nothing. The finder said that a variety of banks were not interested in the deal.

Oh, and that $20,000 fee? Unfortunately, that was non-refundable.

With the credit crunch -- and slowing economy -- entrepreneurs are certainly having trouble raising money. But, there also appears to be a rise in so-called "advance fee schemes" (this is according to a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, which is a paid publication).

In fact, the FBI is investigating the matter (and also has some helpful resources on its website). Although it could actually be pretty tough to prove fraud. Essentially, there must be evidence that the finder had no intention of raising the capital.

A lot of people have believed that Countrywide (NYSE:CFC) could not have come by all of those profits during the last few years without looking the other way on some loans. Indeed, according to The Wall Street Journal, "A federal probe of Countrywide, the nation's largest mortgage lender, is turning up evidence that sales executives at the company deliberately overlooked inflated income figures for many borrowers."

In the cases of may of these mortgages, borrowers did not have to show proof of income or tax returns.

The FBI, which has been looking into all of this, believes that there was some fraud in the level of income loan officers reported that their clients had. That would make getting a mortgage easier, assuming the lender lied in the right direction.

The probe also raises the question of whether Countrywide had to say something about these loans and their problems in its public company filings.

These investigations always go the same way. The government finds that some mid-level people played fast and fancy with the rules. Then they want to know how far up the chain the practice was approved.

Maybe some people in the Countrywide executive suite are sweating.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com and author of the Ten Stocks Under $10 Letter.

The FBI says that deceptive practices at hedge funds and some banks may have made the subprime disaster worse. According to Reuters, the head of the agency said the bureau's investigation of potential fraud in the U.S. home mortgage industry now encompasses 19 companies in "cases that may have a substantial impact on the marketplace."

While insider trading and accounting fraud may be part of any charges which emerge, one of the biggest single issues may be the sales practices of the firms which sold subprime paper to their clients. The subprime instruments were often presented as having high credit ratings and safe risk profiles. Of course, it didn't work out that way. Another problem may be whether mortgage banks were completely honest in what they told home-buyers about how their loans would work as their interest rates increased over time.

Some of the investigation is a witch hunt. Large banks which took subprime instruments onto their balance sheets had plenty of genius-level analysts who could have examined the products. At most firms, so one skipped that part. Caveat emptor and all that. Individuals who took on home mortgages sold by people who did not want them to read the small print is another matter.

Rumors are that Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) could be targets of the probe. Countrywide (NYSE:CFC) is already under investigation. One news report on the potential scandal said that FBI head man Robert Mueller told a meeting of lawyers "that their corporate clients should come forward and admit any wrongdoing before the FBI or Justice Department become involved.."

That'll be the day.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

The FBI is probing whether Countrywide Financial (NYSE: CFC) committed securities fraud by making false statements about the mortgage bank's deteriorating financial position.

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports that a "potential issue facing the company is whether it has been candid in its accounting for losses. People familiar with the matter said that Countrywide's losses may be several times greater than it has disclosed."

Aside from the potential civil and criminal issues at stake, the investigation could kill the takeover of Countrywide by Bank of America (NYSE: BAC). It is not clear whether the mortgage company can make it as an independent operation if the big bank withdraws it offer. If auditors and the government determine that CFC losses are much greater than represented, it might drive the mortgage firm into insolvency.

The Bank of America deal is probably the only way that Countrywide shareholders can get any money for their shares. The company's stock has dropped from a 52-week high of $42.24 to just above $5, which is not much above its 52-week low.

The news reports of the FBI probe is likely to push shares lower. If new, significant losses have to be reported, the price of CFC's stock may go to zero.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Government officials have a way of grandly stating what everyone else had known to be obvious for a long time. In this case, FBI director Robert Mueller called the epidemic of mortgage fraud that rose with the real estate bubble a "substantial problem."

The FBI is teaming up with the SEC to investigate 14 companies. According to the Associated Press, "As the nation's housing crisis worsens, there has been a dramatic spike in the number of mortgage fraud cases under investigation. An FBI spokesman said 1,210 such cases are open, up from roughly 800 a year ago."

The FBI has raised the number of its white-collar agents looking at mortgage fraud from 7% to 28% since 2003, and the case load has risen substantially as well. Back in December, Lita Epstein wrote about the soaring levels of mortgage fraud that are driving foreclosure numbers.

It's interesting to think about how much of a role mortgage fraud played in the housing bubble. Rampant lying on loan applications allowed people with shaky credit to buy houses they had no business buying. The effect was to flush tons of funny money into the housing market, causing a huge increase in home prices.

Bubbles and fraud seem to have gone together well throughout history, something I wrote about back in December. The effect of fraud is not just that it rips off the people who are defrauded; it creates a fundamental lack of balance in the market that leads to booms and busts.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI has opened criminal inquiries as part of an investigation over subprime mortgage issues. The probe into 14 companies will focus on accounting fraud, insider trading and securitization of loans.
• The Wall Street Journal also reported that Merck and Co Inc's (NYSE: MRK) osteoporosis treatment Fosamax is facing increasing scrutiny and lawsuits, as a growing number of patients allege the drug causes a condition called ONJ.
• According to a Federal judge, antitrust supervision of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) should be extended for two years longer than originally planned, until November 2009, the Financial Times said. The supervision was imposed as part of its landmark settlement in 2002, when Microsoft was accused of failing to produce an adequate licensing arrangement for certain protocols essential for rivals to work their own products through the Windows operating system.

OTHER PAPERS:

• The Economic Times reported that Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) has decided not to retain any stakes in its Jaguar and Land Rover divisions after selling them to India's Tata Motors Limited (NYSE: TTM), according to sources.