Dive Brief:
- A former CFO of a Nebraska bank has been convicted in federal court of bank fraud and attempted bank fraud, according to the Justice Department.
- After a two-week trial in Omaha, a jury on March 6 found Aaron Luneke, 44, of Columbus, Nebraska, guilty of defrauding his employer, Bank of the Valley, to obtain $4.3 million in loans, and attempting to defraud a Minnesota lender, prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Nebraska district said.
- “Mr. Luneke exploited his position of power to conceal a pattern of deception that defrauded his employer. Financial crimes erode public trust and confidence in our country’s economy, so we will remain steadfast in our efforts to investigate those using illegal means to enrich themselves for personal gain,” Eugene Kowel, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Omaha field office, said in a March 12 news release.
Dive Insight:
Luneke was Bank of the Valley’s CFO from July 2018 through May 2022. Between February and June 2021, Luneke crafted a scheme to defraud the Bellwood, Nebraska-based bank and another lender, St. Cloud, Minnesota-based Stearns Bank, to fund a car wash construction project in Columbus, the DOJ said.
In an effort to dupe both banks into approving loans they otherwise wouldn’t have, Luneke “orchestrated a pattern of inflated invoices” and didn’t disclose financial obligations, prosecutors said.
Luneke submitted fraudulent and inflated contractor invoices to Bank of the Valley and obtained two loans from the bank totaling about $4.3 million, the DOJ said. The seven-branch bank has about $542.9 million in assets, as of the fourth quarter…