Mafia figures and crooks, started buying small savings and loans in out-of-the-way-places. In that manner they gained access to the Treasury of the United States, permitting them to engage in self-dealings, sham transactions, and massive fraud against the American taxpayer. Deregulation and the concurrent fraud were financially fabulous for many people, fueling massive growth in the real estate industry during the 1980s. The public picked up the price tab in the 1990s, and they would pay for decades, well into the next century. The losses, much of which was outright theft, exceeded the cost of
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