It’s easy to understand why a county district attorney, up against it with a staff that’s too small and court docket that’s too large, would cringe at the sight of a financial fraud case, something involving mortgages or illegal monetary transactions, etc. That kind of case means hours of study for attorneys and investigators, and can grow more and more complicated as the facts pile up.

Now, thanks to the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys, a prosecutor will focus on financial crimes. And Attorney General Roy Cooper is himself forming a financial crimes task force in his office.

The crimes are up, prosecutors suspect, and tough times provoke a temptation for those who believe they can get away with something. In the meantime, those taxpayers who funded the billions and billions of dollars in bailouts while watching their own savings take a dive because of an economic downturn wonder why so many people in the financial industry managed to avoid pursuit by the law.

Appropriately enough, the state’s able to have these efforts because of the National Mortgage Settlement reached last year. Some of the money from that settlement will finance the new campaign against financial crime.