"We don't hear about them," said Ivan Ortin, a senior attorney in the fraud division of prosecutor's office for King County, which includes Seattle.

He spent more than 20 years as a special agent in the Secret Service, specializing in white-collar crime, eventually being put in charge of the service's fraud division.

I called American Express's fraud division and found that someone in Boston had, within a three-day period, bought more than $6,000 worth of plane tickets using my credit card number.

"I asked for the fraud division a half-dozen times," he said.

Asked about the four who were charged, Mr. Pagis, of the fraud division, said, "They helped us, but they did not confess."

Mark Fionda, who is in the United States Customs fraud division in Manhattan, and other foreign representatives reported on their art-recovery operations.

The preliminary inquiry, first reported on Tuesday in The Daily News, is being handled by the District Attorney's fraud division.

His last mistress had been the wife of a distant colleague, a man from the fraud division.

According to the Coalition's 2007-2008 statistics, Florida ranks in the top four (4) among all states' fraud divisions and bureaus in key measurements of success:

The state insurance company's fraud division said it had begun its own investigation.