The US government says a 56-year-old Georgia man used friends, family and an insider to steal over $3 million from a local bank.
Ronnie Atkinson of Macon, Georgia, who owns his own logging company, is accused of conspiring with a high-ranking executive at a community bank through “materially false and fraudulently pretenses, representations, and promises,” local CBS-affiliate 13WMAZ reports.
Prosecutors say Atkinson had friends and relatives act “straw borrowers,” or people with good credit history who apply for loans in order to transfer funds to those who don’t. Those applications were meant to benefit Atkinson, and the high-ranking bank employee was well aware of the scheme but approved the loans anyway, according to the charges.
Atkinson is also accused of giving the bank fake bills for logging equipment he supposedly needed loans for. Some bills were real but with inflated prices, and others were completely fabricated for things that were never even purchased. One of the documents provided was a real bill for $56,000, but Atkinson managed to get a loan of $149,500 for it, prosecutors allege.
Says court documents,
“(The market president) thus let Atkinson exceed his $500,000 lending limit without the proper approvals by making it appear these loans belonged to a different (person)… (The market president) also did not seek the required approval for (Atkinson’s) loans that were graded substandard.”
A grand jury determined there is enough evidence to charge Atkinson with conspiracy to commit bank fraud and identity theft. He is facing up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine. The government is also looking to seize any of his assets that were the result of the fraud.
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