Months after Wikileaks founder Julian Assange promised to
post documents from a major financial institution, a member of Anonymous
released e-mails allegedly related to Bank of AmericaÃ’s foreclosure practices.
The e-mails were provided by a former Bank of America
employee who claimed the bank withheld critical information from regulators and
sensitive data was deleted. A twitter account called Anonymous@OperationLeakS
announced the release of the e-mail messages on the site,
bankofamericasucks.com, shortly after midnight Eastern time on March 14.
An anonymous representative, who had not read the messages
but had been briefed on the contents, told Reuters the e-mails addressed “whether
Bank of America has improperly foreclosed on homes.”
The e-mails are allegedly exchanges between employees at
Balboa Insurance, a unit Bank of America acquired as part of its Countrywide
Financial acquisition in 2008. Balboa dealt with Ôlender-placed insurance,Ô or
insurance policies taken out by lenders paid for by the mortgage holder. Bank
of America is in the process of finalizing the $700 million sale of Balboa to Australian
insurer QBE Insurance Group.
Some of the e-mails hint at an organized effort to tamper
with loan numbers and audit trails, such as a conversation between two Balboa
employees regarding an ÔunusualÔ request to remove document tracking numbers
from the system so that documents could no longer be correlated to specific
loans, according to the BBC
and New
York Times, who examined the messages.
The approval was given to remove loan numbers from
documents, the New York Times reported.
For more, read the eWEEK article: Bank of America E-mails Leaked by Anonymous.
