WASHINGTON -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened criminal inquiries into 14 companies as part of an investigation of the subprime-mortgage crisis, FBI officials said. The probe is focusing on accounting fraud, securitization of loans and insider trading, among other areas.

The FBI wouldn't identify the companies under investigation but said it is looking into allegations of fraud in various stages of the mortgage process, from companies that bundled the loans into securities to the banks that ended up holding them.

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