Mastro arrested in France

A developer who was once heavily involved in Monroe real estate before entering into the largest bankruptcy in Western Washington history has ben arrested in France.

Mike Mastro, 87, was forced into bankruptcy beginning in 2009. Among the Monroe properties affected were the Monroe Golf Course and “Pete’s Party Pit,” an undeveloped piece of land that includes an artificial lake on the corner of Blueberry Lane and Kelsey Street.

Mastro owed more than half a billion dollars when he was forced by three of his creditors into bankruptcy proceedings, about $100 million of which was owed to Seattle-area investors, most of whom will get pennies on the dollar, if anything.

The developer reported about $250 million in assets.

But according to law enforcement officials, he and his wife, Linda, failed to turn over all of those assets as required by the courts.

Sixteen months ago, Mastro and his wife left the country, days after the courts ordered them to turn over two diamond rings with a total value of about $1.4 million. In August of 2011, the Mastros were charged with six counts of bankruptcy fraud.

According to the Western Washington U.S. District Attorney’s Office, the Mastros wrote checks against a bank account they never disclosed to the courts, including car payments on a Bentley and a Rolls-Royce, about $285,000 in personal expenses and $100,000 in gold.

At the request of the FBI, French police arrested the Mastros last month at an apartment in the French Alps they had rented under their own names.