Local, state and federal agencies have formed one of the nation's first comprehensive task forces to battle them, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman announced Thursday.

"We are coming after you," Tolman said at a news conference. "We're not going to let people get away with this type of behavior."

The 2007 Mortgage Asset Research Institute's Ninth Periodic Report to the MBA ranks Utah as fifth in the nation for mortgage fraud after Florida, California, Michigan and Georgia. The FBI ranked Utah in the Top 10 of mortgage fraud states in 2006.

Huntsman noted that there has been a "checkerboard of jurisdictions and investigations" in the state. By combining the resources of different agencies, the task force hopes to close gaps and ensure that no one gets away with a scam, he said.

"Our firepower as a state has been enhanced many-fold," the governor said.

Members of the task force will be divided into teams that investigate and prosecute all participants in a suspected fraud. Criminal charges could be brought in either state or federal court. Some of the common schemes involve straw buyers, illegal property flipping, identity theft or inflated appraisals.

Agencies participating in the mortgage fraud task include:

The U.S. Attorney's Office, Utah Attorney General's Office, the FBI, Utah Insurance Fraud Division, the IRS, the Draper Police Department, the Utah Department of Commerce, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Utah Department of Insurance, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the state Department of Public Safety, the Utah Division of Securities and the Salt Lake, and the Davis, Utah and Washington county attorneys' offices.

pmanson@sltrib.com