BREAKING: SPEEDING FREIGHT TRAIN DERAILS, CRASHES THROUGH FAILING REGIONAL BANK

FDIC INVESTIGATOR: “SOMETIMES THE PUBLIC CATCHES HALF A BREAK”

By Dr. Fred Potato
Radio Free Ozarks Editor
April 12th, 2023

A Union Southern freight train derailed in downtown Davis City on Sunday morning, sending two locomotives crashing through the south Arkansas town’s BitchBro Bank building. The crypto-friendly regional bank had recently been declared as distressed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and was expected to be put into receivership by the FDIC early this week.

While no fatalities were reported at press time, the whereabouts of the bank’s owner remains unknown. The train’s engineer and brakeman were apparently unharmed and were seen on a security camera to have fled the scene shortly after the crash. Their whereabouts remain unknown. The crash destroyed what is probably the nicest building in Davis City’s historic but run-down central district. The bank was going to be shut down but that building could have easily been repurposed into a food pantry or maybe a cryo-therapy boutique.

According to a joint NTSB/FDIC response effort, the crash apparently halted several pending, speculative trades in crypto and several very large transfers of BitchBro Bank’s few remaining assets to offshore accounts. FDIC regulators stated that the train crash appears to have helped depositors by preserving most of these assets, improving the recovery rate for the FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund.

“Sometimes the public catches half a break,” on-site FDIC representative James Chargril stated during a media briefing on Monday afternoon. “This was a failing bank, and I was already in town to shut it down today. There seemed to be some illegal asset transfers queued up to execute first thing this morning, so there’s nothing like a good timely train derailment to strengthen public confidence in our banking system. It’s good the crash didn’t happen today. The social media bros knew something was up, and there would have been a long line of customers lined up in the plaza, waiting to try to withdraw their money.”

Davis County Sheriff Bill D’Ammo also briefed reporters on the early phases of his investigation. “We are working diligently with the NTSB to determine the cause of the crash,” D’Ammo said “The front of the train seems to have jumped the tracks and traveled right down the little swale yonder to the employee entrance. The speed of the train definitely seemed to be a factor. Reports on social media that the train engineer was, uh, pleasuring himself on a livestream at the time of the crash are, I can tell you, completely unsubstantiated at the present time.”

D’Ammo also noted that his preliminary investigation was having difficulty determining who, exactly, owns the Union Southern railroad. Corporate documents filed in Texas list a post office box in the Cayman Islands as an official mailing address. D’Ammo stated that he was able to briefly speak to a company representative over a Zoom call. “The Union Southern representative was not seen on the call due to a poor quality internet connection,” D’Ammo recalled, “But they stated that their initial investigation had determined that they were not at fault in the crash. This is a peculiar thing for them to say, as I was the one who told them about the accident, at the start of that same Zoom call.”

D’Ammo went on to say that the ownership of BitchBro bank was similarly murky. The bank’s web site was noted for having no public-facing information, only a single log-in screen for customers. The web site appeared to cease functioning at the time of the crash, suggesting that its servers were located in the destroyed building.

Through records on LinkedIn, Percival Groper III was listed as the bank’s owner and president and “OG BitchBro”. No other information about Groper could be found. On his LinkedIn profile he listed no other jobs or educational experience, and wrote that his career goal was to “Improperly seize (steeeeeaaaal!) bank customer assets and line them [sic] to my own pocket.” Attempts to contact him through his LinkedIn page were not successful.

Chargril later speculated that, should Groper turn out to be a real person, he may be buried under the rubble. First responders were initially anxious to dig into the rubble in the hopes they might find some loose Bitcoins. “When I arrived on the scene I explained that Bitcoin was not a real physical thing they could find,” Chargril said. “Now they won’t dig without the air being tested.”

Sheriff D’Ammo also noted that, further back up the line, several oil tanker cars in the train had derailed in Davis City’s old warehouse lane, causing a fire that destroyed a vacant commercial building. In keeping with the theme, a visibly frustrated D’Ammo explained that ownership of the destroyed building was uncertain. City records indicate that the building was last used as an Otasco general merchandise store, which had closed in 1983. “Look, I’ve sat in my police cruiser on too many afternoons and watched these freight trains blow through this town too fast,” D’Ammo blurted, seeming to stray from his prepared remarks. “I sit and watch helplessly and think, ‘the train, it won’t stop going, but it could slow down.'” D’Ammo abruptly left the media briefing and sped away in his police cruiser.

Chargril later provided Radio Free Ozarks with BitchBro Bank’s most recent balance sheet report, filed with the FDIC in 2022. In it, the bank listed

• Approximately $1.2 million in cash-on-hand
• Approximately 1,360,000 crypto FuqCoins, worth about $16.25 at current market price
• Approximately $2.3 billion in “unrecoverable” debt, which oddly was listed as an asset

Damage to Davis City’s central district appeared limited to the loss of the building and a few abandoned newspaper racks, plus damage to a fountain that hasn’t been turned on since the Clinton administration. Davis City’s central district, with its tall and sturdy oak trees, is noted for its role in the 1919 south Arkansas race riots. Noted by whom I don’t know. They didn’t teach this to you in school, and it isn’t discussed by anyone. Don’t ask. Don’t call the library (it’s closed). And no, don’t look it up.

In a statement released late on Sunday, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated that she had waived any federal cleanup effort. She also stated that she would be appointing a blue ribbon investigative body to determine whether the “radical left” was in any way responsible for the crash.