The U.S. government has sued Deutsche Bank AG and one of its mortgage subsidiaries for civil mortgage fraud, The Real Deal reported.

The complaint, which focuses on Deutsche Bank’s MortgageIT, said that entity issued more than $5 billion in loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) between 1999 and 2009.

The lawsuit, which said many of the loans did not meet the criteria for FHA insurance and should never have been authorized, alleges that MortgageIT lied in order to gain approval as an FHA lender and ignored the wrongful endorsements because it was making substantial profits from the resale of those FHA-insured loans.

“Close to 90 percent of the activity covered by the U.S. Department of Justice allegations happened prior to Deutsche Bank’s acquisition of MortgageIT,” a bank spokesperson said. “When Deutsche Bank acquired MortgageIT in 2007, it was a Federal Housing Authority lender that had been operating within the oversight of the Department of Housing and Urban Development for nearly a decade. We believe the claims against MortgageIT and Deutsche Bank are unreasonable and unfair, and we intend to defend against the action vigorously.”

U.S. authorities are seeking millions of dollars in damages, The Real Deal said.