The arrests, carried out over the last six months, bring the number of arrests to 56 since the mortgage-fraud task force was formed in September.
Real-estate professionals, including agents, mortgage brokers and appraisers were among those arrested as well as people who had sold their identities so homes could be bought in so-called straw-buyer schemes.
''What is really disturbing is you can see the fraud occurring at all levels,'' Alvarez said, noting that lenders were also guilty to the extent they made loans without confirming borrowers' identities or the information in mortgage applications.
The Federal Reserve Board on Monday issued new rules requiring banks and mortgage companies to verify borrowers' income and assets to prevent the lending abuses and fraud that led to the current crisis.
Florida ranks first in the nation for mortgage fraud and second in the number of foreclosures.
''The real estate crisis has to do not only with the economy but [with] the amount of fraud that has taken place in our community,'' Alvarez said.
Earlier this year, state legislators passed a law toughening penalties for mortgage-fraud convictions and requiring law enforcement to notify local property appraisers of properties possibly targeted by scammers.
Appraisers would then have to consider whether property values for neighboring homeowners should be revalued for tax purposes. The law took effect July 1.
Glenn Theobald, chief legal counsel for Miami-Dade Police, said 45 cases had already been delivered to the county's property appraiser for review, though he would not say in which areas the properties were located.
Theobald said the efforts of the task force, a collaboration between law enforcement and representatives from the real-estate industry to establish best practices, beef up investigations, and streamline the fraud reporting, had been noticed at the state level.
A statewide task force is in the works, according to Theobald.
Gov. Charlie Crist is expected to sign executive orders getting it off the ground in August.
