SIOUX CITY, Iowa – A former branch manager for MetaBank pleaded guilty last week to selling more than $4 million of phony CDs to credit unions, banks and other entities and now the buyers want their money back.
Guardian Angel CU in Berlin, N.H., which bought a $99,000 CD it thought was issued by MetaBank, is one of about 50 institutions victimized in the scam, which ran between 1995 and 2008. The credit union has filed a civil suit against the bank, a unit of Meta Financial Group of Storm Lake, Iowa.
Others victims are: Coreplus FCU, Hamilton FCU, East Idaho CU, Frost National Bank, First Federal Bank, St. Paul Mercury Insurance Co., and Methodist Hospital of Dallas.
Charlene Pickhinke, 48, who worked at the bank for 28 years, pleaded guilty last week to wire fraud, making a false statement in a bank’s records, money laundering and aggravated identity theft.
Pickhinke confessed to selling the phony CDs, then using two bank accounts using the names of dead bank customers to launder the proceeds from the scam.
Pickhinke was employed until December 2007 by Iowa State Bank, which bought the MetaBank branch earlier in the year. None of the fraud took place while the branch was owned by Iowa State Bank.
