The country's second largest bank, Bank of America, has been accused of mortgage fraud in a civil suit filed by the U.S. government in a Manhattan court Wednesday, Reuters reported.

The suit claims that Bank of America sold thousands of home loans that were deliberately processed at such a high speed adequate checks could not be performed, through its Countrywide Financial unit, acquired in 2008.

It alleges the scheme was devised by Countrywide in 2007 and continued through 2009.

U.S. Attorney Preet  Bharara said the result was "countless foreclosures" and more than $1 billion in losses to the home mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have since come under government control.

"The fraudulent conduct alleged in today's complaint was spectacularly brazen," he noted in a statement Wednesday. "This lawsuit should send another clear message that reckless lending practices will not be tolerated."

Prosecutors are asking for $1 billion in penalties as compensation "for the behavior that they say forced taxpayers to guarantee billions in bad loans," as reported by The New York Times.

Inspector generals for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Troubled Asset Relief Program assigned to oversee the bank bailout program, also joined in the suit.

This is the sixth brought against a major U.S. bank by the Justice Department in less than 18 months over what Bharara called "reckless mortgage practices in the lead-up to the financial crisis," Bloomberg News reported.