Pavel Maslov, former bishop — in the role of Ostap Bender! Translation of an article from the American newspaper 'Seattle Times': Looting the bank? Local conspiracy allegedly snared millions of dollars

July 12, 2013 · Alexander Sarkisyan, Boris Perchatkin, Vancouver, Unregistered Pentecostals, United Church of Evangelical Christians, Vestibule, Portland, Religious Mafia

On January 20, 2013, the main newspaper of Seattle and Washington state, The Seattle Times, published an article about an inveterate swindler and! former ‘bishop’ of an unregistered brotherhood Pavel Maslov. He became notorious for robbing a prisoners’ conference in Tacoma in 2004. And to escape accountability before the brotherhood for robbing the prisoners, he conspired with the so-called bishop of the “independent brotherhood” Kolya Tachinsky to discredit and break up the unregistered brotherhood of the OCCVE of America! But more on that later. As we see from the article, it is precisely at this time that he purchases land in the prestigious Seattle area of Bellevue, where Bill Gates and other Microsoft bigwigs live. That’s how high this “religious refugee” from Moldova has set his sights, by the way, he still trails a bad reputation as a thief and schemer there. At the same time, shortly after the robbed prisoners’ conference, he builds himself a house, but in a different location. Moreover, he registered church property – that is, a building for the church – as his personal property.

He also “gained fame” for putting his own son-in-law in prison. Maslov didn’t want to pay back the $30,000 he borrowed from his son-in-law. So Maslov began to separate his daughter from her husband, having first found a new man for her, and took the house away from his son-in-law.

In Moldova, Maslov hung around Bishop Viktor Belykh and his henchman prophet Nikolai Kotyakov. When Viktor Belykh was writing the incredibly heretical “prophetic” book “Rivers of Living Water,” Maslov was his personal scribe. But that’s a completely different story.

Upon arriving in America, while living in Portland‑Vancouver, he was running a “business” with the Sarkisians selling “red mercury” and some strategic materials from Russia, where they fell out and cheated each other, after which the offended Sandro – Alexander Sarkisian began to take revenge, that is, to write denunciations to the FBI about Maslov.

And so, the translated article, with an unambiguous title:

Bank Robbery?

Nearly four years after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took over Westsound Bank at a loss of more than $100 million, details have emerged about how the federally insured bank was allegedly looted.
Sanjay Bhatt Seattle Times business report
A short road in West Bellevue ends abruptly at a barren, sunken lot, a legacy of the Bremerton bank’s strategy of lending for ever more grandiose plans for mega-homes.
In 2007, Westsound Bank gave Pavel Maslov, an electrician in Kent County, a $2 million loan to buy the property, demolish the old country house, and build a 4,500‑square‑foot home with three garages. Maslov’s contractors demolished structures without a permit and broke underground lines that supplied flammable gas to a neighboring house.
“They almost blew up the neighborhood,” said Nancy Lee, a longtime resident.
That is the legacy of Westsound in King and Pierce counties: From 2005 to 2007, a fraudulent loan officer at the bank’s Federal Way branch issued at least 120 home construction loans totaling $118 million to amateur Russian and Ukrainian construction companies like Maslov’s, federal officials say.
Those loans crippled one of the fastest‑growing banks in the Pacific Northwest, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took over Westsound in May 2009 at a loss of more than $100 million.
Nearly four years later, few have been held accountable. But details have emerged about how the federally insured bank was allegedly looted.
Two weeks after marshals closed Westsound, a federal grand jury indicted Alexander Kravchenko and his wife, Galina, on charges of bank fraud and money laundering using Westsound loans. Prosecutors added tax evasion charges a year later.
The indictment, unsealed only in May of this year, charges the Kravchenkos with conspiracy to defraud Westsound Bank by recruiting unqualified borrowers who obtained 55 loans worth at least $49 million. The Kravchenkos extracted at least $1 million in fees, prosecutors say.
Theresa Feller, then a Westsound loan officer who allowed unqualified borrowers to obtain tens of millions, denies wrongdoing and has not been charged with any crimes. She declined to comment for this story.
Kravchenko was no stranger to Westsound’s leadership: the bank’s loan committee approved millions in real estate and loans for him and his company, the FDIC alleged in a civil suit filed in 2011 against former bank directors and officers.
The Russian lending program was part of a broader strategy by Westsound’s leaders to grow rapidly ahead of the bank’s initial public offering in 2006, the FDIC alleged.
Warnings from regulators in early 2007 to take a closer look at risky lending in the Federal Way branch were ignored by bank staff and directors, the FDIC alleged.
About half of the 120 suspect loans were stated‑income loans, which do not require borrowers to prove their income. Other loan files lacked signed tax returns. All had an “alarmingly high level of suspicion,” the FDIC said.

Fraud Scheme

In April 2005, Westsound hired Feller, an experienced loan officer, to manage its new mortgage branch in Federal Way. Feller, the FDIC later alleged, conspired with Kravchenko, appraisers, and borrowers on false and unverified loan applications. And thanks to the bank’s compensation structure, the FDIC said, she earned more than $1 million in commissions during her two years there. Kravchenko, owner of Artisan Home Construction in Auburn, recruited young, self-employed borrowers through ads in a Ukrainian-language newspaper. Some of them believed Kravchenko worked at Westsound: They called the Federal Way branch, asked for him, and were connected to a desk he had there, the FDIC alleges. He also translated for borrowers who visited the branch. Here is one example of how the fraud worked, according to the indictment: Kravchenko’s company signed an agreement to buy a property in Auburn for $470,000, assigned its interest to one of its recruits, and helped him apply to Westsound for a $1.2 million home construction loan. The borrower claimed that he earned $22,000 a month, had $200,000 in assets, and planned to live in the house. It was all lies, prosecutors say, as were the tax returns for the previous two years that he submitted to the bank. Through an intermediary, Kravchenko funneled $69,500 to the borrower, who deposited it into a personal bank account at Bank of America. Westsound approved the loan after verifying the account. After closing the loan, Kravchenko received a “development fee” of $10,000, and his wife, a real estate agent, received a $29,311 sales commission. The house was never built, county records show. (In 2010, the FDIC sold the property to an investor for $350,000.) The suspect loans were often based on rushed appraisals that supported inflated loan amounts. The bigger the loan, the larger the bank’s fee. “A good appraiser for Westsound was someone who could drive up the price,” said Richard Agar, who owns American Home Appraisal in Mercer Island and reviewed some of the appraisals commissioned by the bank. “Westsound didn’t review these appraisals, and even when they did, they were terrible, terrible appraisals.” In some cases, where the plan called for a 7,000-square-foot house, the final homes turned out to be only 4,600 square feet. Or, like Maslov’s property, no house was built. The bank didn’t monitor the loans or even check whether construction was happening at all. Borrowers used the loan funds to write checks for car dealerships, credit card companies, private schools, and department stores, the FDIC alleges. Westsound told its shareholders that a committee would review all loan applications over $100,000. But virtually none of the Russian loans received that review. That’s because, starting in April 2005, the bank’s directors and executives informally delegated oversight of home construction loans to the very mortgage underwriters and loan officers who earned commissions on those loans, in violation of the bank’s stated policy, the FDIC alleges. The bank was betting that mortgage giants like Countrywide Financial would buy these loans and move the risk off the bank’s books. But there was no payoff for Westsound without completed homes. Brett Green, the bank’s executive vice president of sales and lending, allowed Feller to misuse the automated underwriting system and for the bank to make risky loans without review, the FDIC alleges. Feller denies entering any information into that system and said the loans were approved by the bank’s underwriting department or the president. “My actions were always open and transparent, and the bank president and the board knew we were working with this community, no secrets,” Feller wrote to the FDIC. Like Feller, Green was paid based on the mortgage division’s business: As one of Westsound’s highest-paid executives, Green received $300,000 in salary and $350,000 in bonuses in 2005 and 2006. In early 2007, state and federal examiners met with Westsound’s board to criticize the high volume of construction loans coming out of the Federal Way branch. The bank allowed Feller to continue making loans from March until August, when state regulators began investigating complaints from the community about possible misconduct at the branch. By that time, another 20 construction loans totaling $30 million had gone out the door to unqualified Russian borrowers. The bank fired Feller. But it was too late. On Sept. 21, citing a slowdown in the mortgage market, Westsound laid off most of its mortgage division’s staff, including Green. Regulators later determined that the Federal Way branch’s loans to Russian and Ukrainian borrowers accounted for more than 80 percent of the bank’s troubled loans. The bank had to set aside $13.3 million — about a fifth of its capital at the time — just to bring its loan loss reserves to an adequate level. Johnson left the bank the following March, just before regulators hit Westsound with a cease-and-desist order and demanded the board bring in an experienced CEO and chief credit officer. But the new CEO inherited a rapidly deteriorating loan portfolio, and it came as home prices began what would become a swift decline. By some estimates, 30 percent of the homes financed by Westsound in King and Pierce counties were not completed or even started. The bank wrote off tens of millions of dollars in bad loans and was left with bulldozed lots, skeletal frames of unfinished houses, and completed mansions that no one could afford. On May 8, 2009, state and federal regulators shut down Westsound. Shareholders across the country, from local business accelerators to the Detroit firefighters’ pension fund, took a bath.

Epilogue

Last year the FDIC barred Feller from working for any federally insured bank.
The agency also recently filed a lawsuit against Green, Johnson and the directors for $1.73 million. They admitted no wrongdoing, and all expenses were picked up by the bank’s insurer.
According to two sources, the Kravchenkos fled to Moldova, an Eastern European country that has no extradition treaty with the U.S. The Justice Department would not comment on the couple’s whereabouts, but confirmed that they are international fugitives.
Maslov could not be reached for comment. But in July 2011, he was allowed to sell a plot in Bellevue (the eastern Jewish suburb of Seattle, where high-tech companies including Microsoft and Bing are located and where Bill Gates lives — that’s where religious bishops from Moldova are trying to settle!) that he bought four years ago with $1.1 million in Westsound money.
Price: $400,000.
“It lowered the property value for all of us,” said neighbor Lee. Today it’s still a hole.

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