Three men were being questioned last night about mortgage fraud, money laundering and tax evasion worth millions of pounds in Northern Ireland.

They were arrested in Coleraine, Co Londonderry, and Ballymoney, Co Antrim, by detectives from the organised crime branch.

Police searched a number of properties across the province.

The investigation includes a £3 million mortgage fraud involving 25 properties, income tax and capital gains tax evasion.

The searches came on the same day as a series of police raids in Sussex and London, also in connection with mortgage fraud.

Nine people were being held in custody with a suspected £40 million mortgage fraud involving more than 500 properties.

The eight men and one woman — aged between 29 and 73 — were arrested following dawn raids on six residential addresses in Sussex and north London, City of London Police said.

They were being questioned on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering.

Police said the probe surrounded mortgages taken out on properties in the south of England between 2005 and 2007.

The inquiry centred on Eastbourne Financial Services Limited (EFS), a mortgage broker based in East Sussex that is now in liquidation, said a police spokesman.

Yesterday morning’s swoop involved more than 50 officers from the force's economic crime department, assisted by colleagues from Sussex Police.

Three business premises were also targeted as part of the raid, police said.

Detective Superintendent Bob Wishart, of City of London Police, said: “We know that fraud has the potential to impact on local communities and we are determined not only to work with colleagues across the UK to investigate such frauds, but to liaise with other agencies to mitigate that impact on innocent people affected by the criminal greed of others.”

Plain-clothes officers removed boxes and computer hard-drives from the offices of EFS in Windmill Drive, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, and placed them into a large van.