One of the bigger criminals in the mortgage scam was Former Countrywide CEO Mozilo. The SEC has made a symbolic settlement with him and a couple of his accomplices for seventy two million dollars, not a dime of which he has to pay personally, and which would be peanuts even if he had to pay it personally. As a part of the agreement, all potentially embarrassing details associated with his crimes are sealed from nosy outsiders.
What little money will be paid, will be paid from an escrow fund the company set up to cover shareholder litigation – and since Countrywide was taken over by the FDIC, this means that the government is paying the money to itself.