CHICAGO — The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has ordered more than two dozen of its field offices to stop probing some financial crimes so agents can focus on mortgage fraud.

Kenneth Kaiser, chief of the bureau's criminal investigative division, issued the directive late last week during a conference call with the heads of 26 offices in areas where mortgage crime is rampant, said Bill Carter, an FBI spokesman in Washington.

The shift comes after an analysis was conducted of how agents were spending their time. In recent years, the FBI has shifted resources away from financial crimes to concentrate on homeland security issues.

About 150 agents were working on more than 1,300 mortgage cases before the change. During the 12 months ended Sept. 30, the FBI received almost 47,000 so-called Suspicious Activity Reports from lenders detailing potential mortgage crimes, a 31 percent jump over the previous year.

"We see mortgage fraud as a growing and significant problem throughout the U.S.," Carter said Wednesday. "We have to utilize our resources to go after the most significant problems."

The 26 field offices were told to temporarily suspend opening new cases dealing with price fixing, mass marketing, wire fraud, mail fraud and environmental crimes, according to Bloomberg. Current cases aren't being dropped, Carter said. The FBI has 56 field offices and 12,000 agents around the country.

The affected FBI offices are in Illinois, Florida, Georgia, California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Minnesota.

Mortgage fraud cases run the gamut from inflated-appraisal schemes to fraudulent property transfers to rescue scams that rip off homeowners facing foreclosure. Targets of investigations can include real-estate agents, mortgage bankers, home builders, attorneys and appraisers.