COMAL COUNTY, Texas — Odessa-based Southwest Bank is being sued by The Bank of San Antonio for allegedly aiding in a $13 million ponzi-style fraud scheme.
Court documents filed in Comal County in late July state that the Bank of San Antonio did business with a former employee of a subsidiary owned by Southwest Bank who encouraged it to buy out worthless receivables from various businesses.
Odessa City Councilman Dewey Bryant is the President of Southwest Bank and named as the bank's representative in court documents. The bank and nine other defendants are named in the lawsuit.
In one instance, The Bank of San Antonio invested over $10 million to purchase accounts of various businesses from a factoring company owned by Ronald Wayne Schroeder.
Court documents state millions of dollars were lost after The Bank of San Antonio wired money for fake invoices to a fake company called Republic Logistics.
In April 2017, Schroeder and his business partner sold their factoring business to Odessa-based Southwest Bank. Southwest Bank then used those assets to create Southwest Bank Factoring.
Court documents state Schroeder ran the Southwest Bank Factoring company out of Comal County.
In August 2019, Schroeder sold ten different customer accounts, owned by Southwest Bank Factoring, that had misrepresented invoices with false information. Schroeder is accused of fabricating false data in those invoices.
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Update: Southwest Bank has released a statement regarding the lawsuit, it reads,
"On July 29, SouthWest Bank received a message from a reporter for the San Antonio Express newspaper advising the bank that they had been sued by The Bank of San Antonio. That was the first time we were made aware of any such lawsuit. The allegations made against our bank by the Plaintiff’s attorney in the San Antonio newspaper article are outrageous and we categorically deny them. The matter will be reviewed by our attorneys, and hopefully our attorneys will allow us to comment further at a later date. Until that review, we will have no further comment."