It is time to take a new approach to dealing with fraud, according to Preet Bharara, US attorney for the southern district of New York.

With criminal cases hard to prove and many charges laid coming out of the crisis not finding any purchase, Bharara plans to take advantage of new legislation enhancing US attorney power in civil cases to prosecute in civil court those execs and companies accused of fraud.

The new legislation, which took effect last year, allows attorneys to make investigative demands of companies and executives, such as requiring them to attend interviews and disclose internal documents. This is a big step up from the past—when prosecutors were required to get permission from the US Attorney General to make any investigative demands in civil suits.

Bharara announced plans to set up a six-person civil enforcement unit, which will handle all types of fraud—including financial misconduct and abuse of government incentive programs, like TARP.

Given the few criminal prosecutions brought after the financial crisis, the unit is expected to take advantage of lighter burden-of-proof requirements in civil cases to start prosecuting alleged fraud cases that never made it to criminal court. The ultimate goal is to deter would-be fraudsters with the risk of big fines upon civil prosecution.

With the Dodd-Frank Act taking effect last month, which includes beefed-up whistleblower provisions authorizing the SEC to reward those exposing fraud by amounts as hefty as 30 percent of recovered sums, this could lead to a big surge in litigation in the coming months.

According to a piece in Corporate Counsel, law firms are already reporting massively increased whistleblower tips flooding their offices across the country. If even a portion of these go forward—alongside the new civil frauds unit—it could indeed act as a big deterrent to future fraud.