Are Bank Loans Coming From a Creditor Or A Debtor?

Fraud: The Misrepresentation

  • Definition (Black’s Law Dictionary): “A knowing misrepresentation of the truth or concealment of a material fact to induce another to act to his or her detriment.”
  • Application to Banks:
    • Concealment: Banks do not disclose to borrowers or courts that they borrowed reserves from the Fed using customer notes or mortgages as collateral.
    • Misrepresentation: In legal filings, banks present themselves as creditors, despite being debtors at the Fed.
    • Reliance: Courts and trustees rely on this false posture when enforcing foreclosure judgments.
    • Damage: Families lose homes and property under the weight of a misrepresentation.

📌 Supporting Authority

  • Restatement (Second) of Torts § 551: Concealment of a material fact when under duty to disclose is actionable fraud.
  • United States v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 972 F. Supp. 2d 593 (S.D.N.Y. 2013): fraud claims sustained against a bank for misrepresentations in loan practices.
  • Statutes: 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343 (mail and wire fraud) — applicable when foreclosure notices or loan documents transmit false creditor claims.

🔎 Conclusion: By concealing their borrowing at the discount window while claiming to be creditors, banks meet the elements of fraud.


Defraud: The Scheme

  • Definition (Black’s Law Dictionary): “To cheat or deprive a person of property, rights, or lawful standing by deception.”
  • Distinction:
    • Fraud = the false claim (“we are the creditor”).
    • Defraud = the broader scheme: taking the borrower’s note, pledging it at the Fed, borrowing reserves against it, then foreclosing as though the bank were the original lender.

📌 Supporting Authority

  • 18 U.S.C. § 371: Conspiracy to defraud the United States, broadly applied to schemes of concealment.
  • 18 U.S.C. § 1344: Bank fraud statute, criminalizing schemes to defraud financial institutions.
  • United States v. Takhalov, 827 F.3d 1307 (11th Cir. 2016): clarified that “defraud” covers deceptive schemes, not just isolated misstatements.

🔎 Conclusion: The concealment of discount window borrowing while asserting creditor standing is not only fraud (misrepresentation) but also defraud — the deliberate scheme to dispossess borrowers of property by deception.


Final Word

A bank cannot be both a debtor at the Federal Reserve and a creditor against the people without engaging in concealment.

  • Fraud is the false statement of creditor status.
  • Defraud is the ongoing scheme to reverse roles, turning the true source of value (the borrower’s note) into a mechanism for dispossession.

⚖️ Fraud vitiates everything it touches. Courts, lawmakers, and the public must examine this contradiction at the heart of modern banking.