Looting the bank? Seattle conspiracy allegedly snared millions of dollars
Source: Seattle Times
A short driveway in West Bellevue ends abruptly in a barren, sunken lot, the consequence of a Bremerton bank’s strategy of lending based on little more than grandiose plans for megamansions.
In 2007, Westsound Bank gave Pavel Maslov, an electrician in Kent, a $2 million loan to buy the property, remove an old bungalow and construct a 4,500-square-foot home with a three-car garage. Maslov’s contractors demolished the structure without a permit and broke an underground line, sending flammable gas into the house next door.
... This is Westsound’s legacy in King and Pierce counties: From 2005 to 2007, a rogue loan officer at the bank’s Federal Way branch made at least 120 home-construction loans totaling $118 million to amateur Russian and Ukrainian homebuilders like Maslov, federal officials say.
Those loans crippled the Pacific Northwest’s fastest-growing bank, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took control of Westsound in May 2009 at a loss of more than $100 million.
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