louisiana ppp loan arrests

$56,095 AVERAGE PPP LOAN. Act 12 of the 2020 First Extraordinary Session of the Louisiana Legislature provided for a one-time $250 rebate for eligible workers earning $50,000 per year or less, who spent at least 200 hours responding to or mitigating the COVID-19 crisis from March 22, 2020, through May 14, 2020. The Veterans Administration, Office of the Inspector General, is an active member of the PRAC Fraud Task Force. Given the focus of the PPP to support employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Robinson Bradshaw firm wrote last May, it is easy to imagine how a dissatisfied employee observing imperfect business conduct in securing a PPP loan or applying loan proceeds could use that insider information to bring a qui tam action under the FCA.. 2020 Louisiana Individual Income Tax returns and payments are due Monday, May 17, 2021. POGOs analysis of the first full years worth of Paycheck Protection Program fraud cases found that in at least: Some of these cases involve multiple defendants. In fraud cases where there is no apparent misuse of a loan, civil enforcement may be more likely than criminal prosecution. SOUTHERN MAGNOLIA LANDSCAPING LLC. Louisiana Workforce Commission Suspected Fraud Form. Grossman said his office has shared data with the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, which identified some repeat offenders. While the Small Business Administration could be doing more with data on the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, the agencys independent watchdog has embraced this work. The SBA has very broad rules, very, very large leeway on what the lender had to request from the bar to get that guarantee secure, said the SBA Louisiana District Director Michael Ricks. But according to the Justice Department, neither company paid anywhere near the purported amounts and had few if any employees. Kindambu pleaded guilty in January. At $367 billion, the amount of disaster funds provided through the EIDL COVID program is more than three times the amount of disaster loan funds approved for all disasters combined since the SBA was created in 1953, wrote Jovita Carranza, then-head of the Small Business Administration, in December 2020. Government Accountability Office revealed, according to Shear of the Government Accountability Office, the Justice Department unveiled new charges, Greenberg bribed an unnamed Small Business Administration insider, according to the Government Accountability Office, 5.8 million advance grants worth $20 billion, underutilized Program Fraud Civil Remedies Act, Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA), first settlement in a Paycheck Protection Program civil enforcement case, remarks before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, revamped the Paycheck Protection Program loan application, for the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, Lamborghinis, Strip Clubs, Bogus Companies, and Lies, Spike in Suspected Business Loan Fraud Reports Coincided with Paycheck Protection Program, How a Ukrainian Oligarchs Companies Got Paycheck Protection Program Loans. According to the SBA, lenders are responsible for vetting applications and making sure the applicant is telling the truth in whatever way they see fit. AGs Office announces more than 50 arrests connected to Paycheck Protection Program fraud. If convicted, EVERY faces a maximum penalty of twenty (20) years, followed by a term of supervised release for up to three (3) years, a fine up to $250,000.00, or twice the gross gain to the defendant, or twice the gross loss to any victim, and a $100.00 mandatory special assessment fee, per count. Sah submitted falsified tax and payroll documentation in which he claimed to have numerous employees and hundreds of thousands of dollars in payroll expenses, according to a Justice Department press release, but none of the businesses he sought loans for had any employees. The release states that, In exchange for a fee, My Buddy Loans took personal identifying information from victims and promised to file an application for an agricultural grant, which they said was available to those who owned a few acres of land. Instead, the defendants Clifton Pape, 45, and Sally Jung, 58, both of Cleveland, Texas, actually filed fraudulent EIDL applications with the SBA that contained the victims personal identification information.. An official website of the United States government. Some of these qui tam lawsuits are traditional whistleblower cases, but others involve individuals who are slicing and dicing the data that has been made available about loans, according to Grossman. This Office was one of the districts affected by the SolarWinds intrusion. Does something look fishy to you? Making sure that victims of federal crimes are treated with compassion, fairness and respect. More than half of that amount$246 millionactually went to accused fraudsters. Created under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the Paycheck Protection Program has lent out $755 billion to businesses as of April 11. My feeling is that despite the fraud, the program helped far, far, far more of my people than it hurt, said Kennedy. Complaints can also be filed online here. If a company is eligible for a loan and submits certifications in good faith, that company will have nothing to fear from the Civil Division. Have a question about Government Services? SOUTHERN CLASSIC OF FARMERVILLE LLC. And if theyre not interested in prosecuting, for whatever reason, we dont further pursue it at that time., Many of the cases are moving quickly, despite their complexity. Greenberg is a friend of Florida Republican Matt Gaetz, and both were identified in a recent New York Times report as having allegedly paid women for sex, as well as potentially a 17-year-old girl. Data analysts at the inspector generals office have been combing through Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster loan data to look for markers of potential fraud, such as repeat loan applicants from the same physical addresses, Grossman told POGO. Check out bed occupancy rate of hospitals. In a case that garnered national attention, the U.S. Secret Service seized over $8.4 million in Paycheck Protection Program funds from a seemingly bogus ministry in Orlando, Florida that had no apparent operations at its physical location and a website filled with generic language taken from other religious organizations. In July, banks filed nearly seven times the average number of suspicious activity reports. These are not simple or easy cases to investigate and charge, then-acting Assistant Attorney General Brian Rabbitt said at a press conference last September. Greenbergs insider was a loan officer who began working for the agency in May 2020. All totaled, in that city of 43,000 people lenders approved $1.3 million dollars just for barbershop owners. For instance, in one larger case, the Justice Department has charged 19 individuals to date. The National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) is in Baton Rouge and reports can be filed here. Congress also authorized the Small Business Administrations existing Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program to lend in response to the pandemic, and nearly $202 billion in loans through that program have been approved as of April 1. The False Claims Act will play a central role in the Departments pursuit of COVID-19 related fraud, Michael Granston, a Justice Department deputy assistant attorney general, said in December. That story of corruption inside SBA has been overshadowed by other criminal allegations against Greenberg, notably child sex trafficking charges, and a scandal that might bring down a member of Congress. Click here to report information on Amazon warehouses. The Biden administration published a fact sheet on February 2 detailing new measures to prevent fraud in the program. portville central school yearbooks; jennette mccurdy astroseek. $12.2B TOTAL LOAN AMOUNT. 8851 center dr la mesa, ca 91942; chamberlain graduation 2023; fun sober things to do on a friday night. As part of its own COVID-19 relief spending tracker With over 18 million Paycheck Protection Program loans and pandemic-related Economic Injury Disaster loans and advance grants approved over the last year, there is a sea of data on these programs. The payments are refundable tax credits and are not considered taxable income for federal or state tax purposes. All rights reserved. The three Economic Injury Disaster loans Greenberg obtained should have triggered red flags galore. It soon became apparent that the Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs setup also made it particularly susceptible to fraud. We expect to go to trial because of the serious nature of this matter.. The PPP loans are forgivable under certain conditions and the loan forgiveness is not taxable income for federal tax purposes. And these cases are just the beginning. An estimated 1% of that 2009 stimulus was lost to fraud (some claim the rate is even lower than that). Search arrest records and find latests mugshots and bookings for Misdemeanors and Felonies. An October inspector general report states that SBA has fired employees and contractors who were involved in approving loans to themselves or who inappropriately influenced loan approval. The Small Business Administration did not respond to questions, but a spokesperson for the agencys inspector general told POGO that we are aware of one employee and two contractors who have been fired for these reasons. U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Louisiana, Former Louisiana Woman Indicted for Preparing Over 110 Fraudulent PPP Loans Totaling Over $1.1 Million Dollars, 2_ecf_doc_1_-_sharnae_every_indictment_redacted_sanitized.pdf, Dr. Charles J. Southall, III Sentenced to 60 Months in Prison for Money Laundering, Obtaining Over $889,000 Through Fraud, New Orleans Man Sentenced for Theft and Sale of Motor Vehicle from Mississippi Car Dealership, Two More New Orleans Residents Sentenced in Staged Automobile Collision Scheme, Former Louisiana Woman Indicted For Preparing Over 110 Fraudulent PPP Loans Totaling Over $1.1 Million Dollars. Act 12 of the 2020 First Extraordinary Session of the Louisiana Legislature provided for a one-time $250 rebate for eligible workers earning $50,000 per year or less, who spent at least 200 hours responding to or mitigating the COVID-19 crisis from March 22, 2020, through May 14, 2020. 6 AVG COMPANY SIZE. Thanks to the combined efforts of the SBA, the FBI, and IRS-CI, the defendants face prosecution., SBA-OIG Special Agent-in-Charge Amaleka McCall-Brathwaite said: Falsifying documents to fraudulently gain access to SBA program funds is unconscionable. criminally charging someone for stealing $10,000 or less. The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) established by the CARES Act, provides small businesses with funding for payroll costs, mortgage interest, rent, and utilities. Copyright 2021 WAFB. And there is a lot of gray area in the Paycheck Protection Program, partly because the Small Business Administrations rules for the program changed repeatedly and were unclear, and because Congress created loose criteria for loan eligibility and allowed applicants to self-certify their information. New Orleans, Louisiana 70130. The inspector general offices workload has increased significantly, Grossman said. Both programs lacked basic anti-fraud safeguards and the Small Business Administration exercised insufficient oversight, according to the agencys watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, and congressional committees that have investigated the programs. Using a telemarketing scheme called My Buddy Loans, the telemarketing scheme exploited those seeking assistance during the COVID pandemic, including many who were over the age of 55, according to a Small Business Administration inspector general agent quoted in a Justice Department press release. According to the National Priorities Project, thats enough money to pay for both coronavirus vaccine doses for every American and 1.1 million full-time jobs at $15 an hour for an entire year. It Got a PPP Loan. The rebates, funded by the CARES Act, Act 311 of the 2020 Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature allocated federal CARES Act funds to provide grants of up to $15,000 to eligible small businesses through a program administered by the Louisiana Department of Treasury. This table shows the top 5 industries in Louisiana by number of loans awarded, with average loan amounts and number of jobs reported. You have to understand from the lenders perspective, really, theyre just looking at income. While the multi-million dollar PPP loan scam cases get the national headlines, federal prosecutors are going after PPP loan fraud in all amounts. The Department of Justice says in Feb. 2021, Gray created a scheme to defraud a lender and the United States, through the Small Business Administration, by filing false applications for PPP. Linda Miller, the deputy executive director of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, told Federal News Radio in September, My guess is when were all said and done, [the fraud rate is] going to be significantly higher than 5% in the case of the CARES Act. If it is just 5% of the combined $957 billion in Paycheck Protection Program loans and Economic Injury Disaster loans and advance grants, that would still be about $48 billion in fraud. Maybe, maybe not all.. A total of 73,824 loans were distributed to Louisiana leading to a reported 799,664 jobs being retained. But in the year since the CARES Act became law, it has received nearly 150,000 hotline complaints, representing a 19,500% increase over prior years, according to a staff memo from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. Origin Bank. In addition to automated checks against existing government databases, lenders could have conducted online searches or called businesses neighboring a loan applicant to help establish whether the company seeking the loan is real or is the size it claims to be. According to a court filing signed by a Secret Service agent, a family of four was behind a scheme Based on the fraudulent PPP loan applications submitted by NGUYEN, VICTORIA HO, and DAT HO, a total of more than $13 million in PPP loans were approved for the Victoria Companies and approximately $7.8 million in loan proceeds were disbursed into bank accounts controlled by NGUYEN, DAT HO, and other family members. In December 2020, an independent auditor informed the SBA that, out of 5.2 million Paycheck Protection Program loans in 2020, the agency made over 2 million approved PPP loan guarantees worth some $189 billion potentially not in compliance with the law. Gaetz has denied the allegations and Greenberg has pleaded not guilty, although Greenbergs attorney and a prosecutor have said in court that he may be striking a plea deal soon. Official websites use .gov DAVID RAINES COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER, INC. There are many potential cases the Justice Department may not prosecute. Another large identity theft case led to charges against Jeremie Saintvil of Delray Beach, Florida in March. Congress reversed course when it passed a new law on December 27, which authorized more coronavirus loans. SBA has fired employees and contractors who were involved in approving loans to themselves or who inappropriately influenced loan approval. Not all the blame can be placed at the Small Business Administrations feet. Data is available, but its reliability for the purpose of assessing whether Paycheck Protection Program loans are reaching the underserved communities that Congress wanted prioritized is limited because the demographic data is incomplete. to fraudulently obtain the loan money. Louisiana Department of Revenue Identity Theft Affidavit, Louisiana Workforce Commission Suspected Fraud Form. Both the U.S. Attorneys Office and the Louisiana Attorney General have encouraged the community to report suspected fraud. If you look at the last round [of PPP] and you look at it on a time series, it almost looks like the largest businesses and businesses in high-income neighborhoods received money first and smaller businesses and businesses in low-income neighborhoods received money last, the Small Business Administrations Michael Roth told Politico in March. Normally, the office of inspector general receives between 700 and 800 hotline complaints or tips a year. Civil enforcementwhere the evidentiary burden is lower than in criminal casesis another way of holding individuals and companies accountable. We dont have the capacity to work everything that comes in, Grossman told POGO. Buried within the court filing are allegations that Greenberg bribed an unnamed Small Business Administration insider to fraudulently obtain nearly $433,000 in Economic Injury Disaster loans. Ryan Summers is a research fellow for POGO. Ms. Strauss praised the investigative work of the SBA-OIG, FBI, and IRS-CI, and noted that the investigation remains ongoing. Sen. J.D. The SBA Employee would and did use her access to the SBAs computer systems and her access to EIDLs to manipulate the status of EIDLs to trigger the system to extend funding for EIDLs submitted for the benefit for Joel Micah Greenberg, the indictment alleges. Help us crowdsource fraud detection in the PPP program! Analyzing that data for red flags is a way to identity subsets of loans and grants that warrant closer scrutiny and to help direct scarce investigative resources. Nick Schwellenbach IRS-Criminal Investigation remains dedicated to working with our law enforcement partners to ensure that these types of fraud are investigated and the offenders are punished to the fullest extent of the law.. If approved, the SBA pays the lender back using federal funds. We are concerned only with actionable fraud. He added that, in selecting enforcement targets, we will follow the law, and we will not pursue companies that access CARES Act programs in good faith and in compliance with the rules.. I urge anyone who believes he or she is a victim of this type of fraud to report it to the National Center for Disaster Fraud," said US Attorney Brandon Fremin. In addition, the defendants falsely listed the same employees in applications for different nail salons to support the loan amounts applied for, and some purported employees were listed as employees of as many as seven different nail salons during the same time period. (The latest round, which began in January, allowed some applicants to receive a second Paycheck Protection Program loan. According to Grossman, the Small Business Administration watchdog official, all of our ongoing investigations involve individual borrowers rather than lenders. The forgivable loans were meant to cover payroll for employees and, later, other eligible expenses at a time when customers werent coming in. Allegedly misrepresenting the number of employees on their payroll to obtain the funding, they deposited this money into accounts controlled solely by them. In connection with these loan applications, the defendants falsely and grossly overstated the number of employees at the Victoria Companies and wages paid to those employees in order to obtain larger loans. Law enforcement insiders say many more pandemic loan fraud cases will be brought in the months and years ahead. Barbershops were one of the most common businesses to apply. Based on the data, between $5,589,989,154 and $10,528,439,154 have been loaned through the Payroll Protection Program to businesses in Louisiana. mike vernon royal household; are there snakes in gran canaria; shooting in laurel, md yesterday. NGUYEN, 44, and VICTORIA HO, 31, both of Hicksville, New York, and DAT HO, 33, of the Bronx, New York, are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison; one count of major fraud against the United States, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison; and one count of conspiracy to make false statements, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. To support his loan applications, Kindambu claimed that Papillon Holdings had $150,000 in monthly payroll expenses and that Papillon Air had over $850,000 in monthly payroll expenses. Nick Schwellenbach is a Senior Investigator at POGO. GOODWILL INDUSTRIES OF NORTH LOUISIANA INC. The PPP loans are forgivable under certain conditions and the loan forgiveness is not taxable income for federal tax purposes. Horowitz, the Justice Departments inspector general, recently testified to a House panel examining COVID-19 loan fraud that a legislative reform could help address the problem of fraud in smaller dollar amounts. The DOJ says this ill-gotten money was in many cases used to buy luxury personal items like cars, homes, vacation trips, and jewelry. Investigators say those accused made false statements about things like how many people they employ, their average monthly revenue, and payroll figures. Secure .gov websites use HTTPS She's accused of making up fake businesses to collect more than $20,000 through. That new law permitted SBA to require additional information from applicants, such as tax returns, for loans and advances as part of its verification, according to Shear of the Government Accountability Office. The PPP loan forgiveness is not subject to Louisiana state income tax. Otherwise, the borrower is on the hook for the money. On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. If someone defaults, or cant pay it back, the SBA will still reimburse the lender. As former federal prosecutor Tarek Helou told the Wall Street Journal, The scandal is whats legal, not whats illegal., Lenders may also be more likely to face civil enforcement than criminal enforcement. The Department of Justice (DOJ) says as of Aug. 8, more than 5.2 million forgivable loans have been approved, at a total of more than $525 billion. BATON ROUGE, La. The rebates, funded by the CARES Act, are subject to Louisiana state income tax. On January 11, in the final days of the Trump administration, the Small Business Administration began processing a new round of Paycheck Protection Program loans. If youre going to steal money, finite resources from people who need them, then, by God, were going to prosecute you.. But, he added, the CARES Act removed that control, calling it a pivotal change.. *** For media inquiries, contact: This interactive map provides a picture of the ranks of the unemployed at the national, state and county level. Lenders approved that amount for eight people, seven of whom got checks. Director for the Louisiana SBA District Office Michael Ricks said while that information may raise some red flags on the surface, he explained that not complying with an industrys licensing requirements does not necessarily disqualify someone from being eligible for a PPP loan. POGO was unable to reach Edwards before publication. ) or https:// means youve safely connected to the .gov website. In remarks before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an influential business lobbying group, last June before the SBA released partial data identifying Paycheck Protection Program recipients of loans above $150,000, then-Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Ethan P. Davis said that with the administrations decision to release that information, some have predicted more qui tams as a result., Davis then said, Let me be clear. woman indicted for preparing 110 fraudulent PPP loans. Your Address, Corporation Income/Franchise Extension Request. For more information on the Department of Justices response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus. The Small Business Administration distributed 5.8 million advance grants worth $20 billion last year (despite the name, these are not loans that have to be repaid). Federal prosecutors are going after PPP loan fraud in all amounts brought in the PPP loan in! 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