Slow Saturday Special: Wells Fargo Goes Too Far

The Boston Globe wouldn't want a bank to look bad, would it?

"Developer in fight with new lender; Original loans from failed bank now held by Wells Fargo" by Casey Ross  |  Globe Staff, March 17, 2012

A Boston developer who financed a real estate buying spree with loans from the now-defunct Anglo Irish Bank is locked in a legal struggle for control of a property empire that stretches from Massachusetts to Texas.

The developer, John McGrail, who also owns prominent pubs in the Boston area, is trying to fend off an attempt by a new lender, Wells Fargo Bank, to recoup about $190 million he borrowed to buy property during the real estate bubble of the mid 2000s. Wells Fargo acquired his loans following the 2009 collapse of Anglo Irish Bank, which was taken over by the Irish government.

The bank’s lawsuit alleges that McGrail, who previously fell behind on his debt payments to Anglo Irish, has failed to pay operating expenses on some of his properties and let others fall into disrepair, among other issues.

McGrail in turn has sued Wells Fargo, contending the bank concocted a scheme to seize his property and has tried to disrupt his businesses in recent days. His lawsuit alleges, for example, that agents for Wells Fargo got a locksmith to drill through the door of one of his pubs, the Stadium in South Boston, and began boarding up windows and throwing food into the street.  

The f***ers tuly think they can do anything!

The legal fight is the latest to erupt over real estate purchased with debt from Anglo Irish, whose stunning failure helped trigger the collapse of Ireland’s economy and created myriad legal and financial issues for its US borrowers. Irish authorities have sued Anglo Irish’s former chief executive, David K. Drumm, who built the lender’s US operations and now lives in Wellesley after fleeing Ireland in 2009 to evade questioning.  

Related: Irish Banker Bolts to U.S.

Irish authorities blame Drumm for fueling the speculative lending that led to the country’s financial problems, and in a suit filed in US District Court in Boston accuse him of bilking Irish taxpayers by illegally doctoring more than $10 million in loans he took from the bank before its collapse....

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