President Barack Obama issued an executive order on Tuesday creating a new financial fraud task force. The move follows reports that mortgage fraud and foreclosure-related scams are running rampant, sparked by the nation’s economic decline and criminals’ tendency to prey on despair.

The task force is charged with investigating and prosecuting what the administration called “significant financial crimes.” According to federal officials, mortgage, securities, and corporate fraud will be the focal points of the new unit.

The team will “ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, address discrimination in the lending and financial markets, and recover proceeds for victims,” officials explained in a statement to the press.

According to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, this directive also includes investigating financial crimes connected to the nation’s financial crisis and fraud involving the government’s financial stimulus funding.

“This task force’s mission is not just to hold accountable those who helped bring about the last financial meltdown, but to prevent another meltdown from happening,” Holder said.

Holder added, “We will be relentless in our investigation of corporate and financial wrongdoing, and will not hesitate to bring charges, where appropriate, for criminal misconduct on the part of businesses and business executives.”

The federal task force will be led by the Justice Department and is composed of senior-level officials from more than 25 federal departments and agencies, including the Treasury, HUD, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Federal Reserve, FDIC, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), and Homeland Security, among others. Investigations will be coordinated with partners at the state and local level, as well.

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said, “To give American families the protection and peace-of-mind they need, it’s clear the federal response must be as interconnected and multi-dimensional as the challenges we face. No one agency is going to be able to stop financial fraud. This task force will build upon many of the inter-agency collaborations already underway to protect consumers and restore confidence.”

According to Faith Schwartz, executive director of HOPE NOW, mortgage and foreclosure scam artists have proliferated over the last two years as home prices declined and more and more homeowners were facing foreclosure.

“HOPE NOW applauds the U.S. Department of Justice and other agencies for cracking down on the fraudulent activities of unscrupulous actors posing as legitimate professionals or companies that have taken advantage of desperate homeowners across the country,” Schwartz said.

In a memo issued last week, the Justice Department’s inspector general said the FBI has more than doubled its caseload of criminal mortgage fraud investigations over the past three years.

The new financial fraud task force replaces the federal government’s corporate fraud task force established in 2002. The U.S. attorney general will convene the first meeting of the task force in the next 30 days.