The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "FDIC" ...
-
"New Frontier"
In this investigation, The Denver Post reveals potential fraud, in addition to mismanagement of "deposits and loans," caused the collapse of Colorado's New Frontier Bank. Loans were issued to borrowers who "agreed to buy stock," and loan officers often "rewrote terms of delinquent loans."
Tags: New Frontier Bank; Greenley; Larry Seastrom; Weld County; Johnson Dairy; Bill Garcia; FDIC
-
WAMU: Inside The Collapse
It's October 2008: major banks are failing, Congress is bailing them out with taxpayer dollars. The public deserves to know how we got into the mess. ABC News Nightline's "Inside the Collapse" was first to expose a top-down, company-wide reckless lending strategy that led to the biggest bank failure in U.S. history: Washington Mutual Bank. Senior Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas got inside Washington Mutual's culture and uncovered what really went wrong using original reporting, an exclusive whistleblower interview, a video of a jubilant company party, exclusive internal company documents, former employee interviews and victim interviews. His piece, as well as a follow-up on World news with Charles Gibson and articles on ABCNews.com, caught the attention of law enforcement. Two days after the piece aired, federal prosecutors announced that because of "intense public interest" they were investigating the bank's activities with assistance from the FBI, FDIC, SEC and IRS. The story was widely reported in the national media in the following weeks.
Tags: Washington Mutual; Securities and Exchange Commission; Internal Revenue Service; Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; FDIC; Federal Bureau of Investigation; economics
-
Financial package
"Hedge funds in swaps face peril with rising junk bond defaults" examined the complexity of credit default swaps, which are unregulated securities that were supposed to act as a form of insurance and protect investors against risk. "FDIC may need $150 billion bailout as local bank failures mount" reported that many regional banks in the country would fail within a year because they hadn't realized losses on defaulting mortgages. "Exploiting FDIC loopholes enriches former U.S. bank regulators" revealed that three former government employees created a for-profit company that exploits FDIC rules and helps millionaires insure up to $50 million in bank accounts guaranteed by the FDIC.
Tags: economy; finance; recession; bank; bond; FDIC; mortgage; bailout
-
Banking on your money
Commerce Bancorp- one of the nation's fastest growing financial services companies-has also become the biggest private political benefactor New Jersey has seen in a century. The bank's far-reaching political clout and regular campaign contributions-more than $1.6 million in the last five years-have helped Commerce obtain more no-bid government banking, bond and insurance contracts in the state than any of its competitors, including much larger banks such as Wachovia and Fleet.
Tags: Commerce Bancorp; Wachovia Bank; Fleet Bank; FDIC; Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; Securities and Exchange Commission; SEC; Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB); campaign contributions; taxpayer money; Morgan Stanley Dean Witter trust; government banking; underwriting; financial advising; New Jersey State League of Municipalities'; Commerce Insurance Services; Gloucester County Democratic Committee; Gloucester County Board of Freeholders; Ocean County Republican Finance Committee
-
Following the money? Banks vacate city's heart, grow in higher-income areas
Federal statistics for Fairfield, California show banks have abandoned older, low-income housing neighborhoods in an apparent violation of the Community Reinvestment Act, and moved to where new upscale housing developments were going up. The banks were catering to the middle and upper classes, and ignoring low-income neighborhoods. Controversial check cashing stores that charge alarmingly high interest rates have swept into these low income neighborhoods where the banks disappeared.
Tags: Community Reinvestment Act; check cashing; high interest rates; check cashing stores; payday lenders; FDIC records; Washington Mutual; National Community Reinvestment Coalition; Consumers Union
-
A banker's setback leaves Michiganders feeling shortchanged
Stanford Stoddard, a multimillionaire in Southfield, Michigan, wants to start a bank. However, because of his questionable past, the FDIC refused his deposit insurance, making it impossible for him to start his bank. Even with the help of prominent friends, Stoddard still failed to get the required insurance.
-
$1,000,000,000,000 Banks
The first trillion dollar bank is practically inevitable. Does creation of these megabanks mean a boon or bust for investors and the average American? Greising analyzes how the situation occured and also the positive and negative impacts of megabanks.
-
The Cheating of America: How Tax Avoidance and Evasion by the Super Rich Are Costing The Country Billions -- and What You Can Do About It
The book deals with the $200 billion in taxes the federal government fails to collect each year from individuals and corporations failing to do their share. The book examines legal (tax avoidance), illegal (tax evasion) and quasi-legal (tax "avoision") methods of not pay taxes.The authors used the IRS's Statistics of Income and Taxpayer Compliance Measuring Project reports, U.S. Federal Tax records, Treasury Department studies, FDIC reports and other court documents to do their reporting.
Tags: BOOK; taxes; tax evasion; U.S. Tax Court; IRS; FDIC
-
Keystone Bank Series
Messina chronicles the downfall of the First National Bank of Keystone, which was closed in early September 1999 after a federal fraud investigation. The bank, which had been listed as one of the most profitable community banks in the country, apparently listed $515 million in assets that it simply didn't have. Many depositors in impoverished McDowell County, in southern West Virginia, lost money when the bank closed. One couple lost $123,000 of their $223,000 retirement account fund (FDIC covered the remaining $100,000). Later articles revealed the possibility of insider trading by the bank's major stockholders: More than 59,000 shares of bank stock were sold between the time that investigators began a probe of the bank and its Sept. 1 shutdown. "The stockholders who sold their shares got $15 million. Those who bought the stock woke up Sept. 1 with worthless holdings."
Tags: FHA Title 1 loans; FDIC
-
Banking on Fear
The American Bar Association Journal reports that "this is part revisionist history of the banking and savings & loan scandals of the 1980s-early-90s, but more significantly a look at how unprecedented powers subsequently given to regulators to clean up the mess created a 'Frankenstein monster' that harmed and destroyed a lot of innocent bankers and investors. This story shows that not only did Congress in large part create the problem by loosening regulation of savings & loans, its hasty attempt to fix the problem in 1989 with the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act beefed up a bureaucracy that has failed to pull back from cases even after it learns the targets are innocent...."