Bank CEO Issues Fraudulent Loans to Friends and Neighbors, Manipulating Records To Hide Scheme From Bank’s Board and US Government: DOJ

A US bank executive is facing federal fraud charges after allegedly steering his institution into a years-long scheme that enriched friends, neighbors, and favored borrowers while concealing the truth from regulators and his own board.

Prosecutors say Danny Seibel, 54, the former president and CEO of the First National Bank of Lindsay, has been charged by a grand jury in the Western District of Oklahoma with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud, making false entries in the books and records of a financial institution, obstructing a financial examination and failing to implement required anti-money laundering safeguards.

According to the Department of Justice indictment, Seibel caused the bank to issue loans to certain customers, many of whom were personal acquaintances.

The loans were never repaid.

He then allegedly manipulated bank records to make these loans appear performing and healthy to both the bank’s board of directors and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the federal regulator responsible for supervising national banks.

Prosecutors say that Seibel repeatedly modified loan data and falsified reports to hide mounting overdrafts and bad loans, including providing false documentation during an OCC onsite inspection in the summer of 2024.

He is also accused of failing to file suspicious activity reports on his own conduct and advising customers to structure cash deposits below reporting thresholds to evade anti-money-laundering requirements mandated under the Bank Secrecy Act.

First National Bank of Lindsay was closed by regulators in October 2024 after deceptive and unsound practices depleted its capital, and a receiver was appointed.

If convicted on all counts, Seibel faces up to 30 years in prison and fines of up to $1 million, reflecting the federal government’s increasingly aggressive pursuit of financial crimes.

 

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