Umpqua Bank

For the third time in just over a decade, Portland-based Umpqua Bank has been accused of aiding and abetting a massive Ponzi scheme that cost investors millions of dollars. The latest involved Kenneth J. Casey, a prominent investor, philanthropist and political contributor in Marin County, a wealthy enclave north of San Francisco. Casey who died in May 2020 operated a decades-long Ponzi scheme through which he defrauded more than 1,000 victims. Umpqua grew from a tiny bank in Canyonville, Oregon, to one of the largest in the Northwest thanks to a rapid-fire series of acquisitions. Umpqua is set to merge this year with Columbia Banking System, a bank based in Tacoma. In 2014, a bankruptcy trustee sued Umpqua and three other Oregon banks, saying they helped cover up an ongoing Ponzi scheme at Eugene-based Berjac of Oregon, an insurance financing business that went bankrupt in 2012, costing investors $40 million, A few years earlier Bend-based Summit Accommodators collapsed into a similar scandal. The company’s executives had for years been diverting cash it held for its customers and using it to invest in Central Oregon real estate. Investors’ court-appointed trustee sued Umpqua, alleging top executives knew about the scheme. Umpqua paid millions to settle the cases, though it did not admit wrongdoing.