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New details on potentially fraudulent applications for the loan program, which is credited with saving millions of jobs, reveal how the relief rush during the early pandemic emergency resulted in what prosecutors, Democratic lawmakers and taxpayers fear for widespread abuse.
Later on Thursday, the DOJ announced new charges in a complex case involving defendants in Florida and Ohio that requested approximately $ 24 million in loans. Under these calculated were Joshua Bellamy, a former wide receiver for the New York Jets football team.
The case involves eleven people who were coordinated between Miami and Cleveland, “including a professional athlete and a business manager,” the DOJ said.
Bellamy attorneys were not immediately available for comment.
Rabbitt said the DOJ will now focus on the prosecution of “coordinated criminal rings that have systematically and organized been involved in the pillage of the PPP”.
FBI Assistant Assistant Director John Jimenez said the officers generally looked at “people who we believe have fraudulently requested or received hundreds of millions of dollars” of money intended for business owners to weather the economic blow of the pandemic during the wave of closings.
The suspected fraud uncovered so far is only a tiny fraction of that $ 525 billion in PPP loans which were awarded to 5.2 million applicants in the program.
Still, it sparked outrage because some of the money was used on personal extravaganzas like Rolex watches, luxury cars, Vegas gaming trips, and nights on the town at strip clubs.
“I can’t help but be disgusted,” said James Lee, assistant criminal investigator for the Internal Revenue Service.
“You cannot hide from these paper and digital traces that you leave us,” he said in a warning to scammers.
Rabbitt said the fraud update was due to prosecutors reaching an “important milestone” in bringing charges against more than 50 people. On Thursday afternoon it was 57.
POLITICO reported earlier this week on more than 40 charges the DOJ has already filed, mostly related to PPP fraud, as well as another coronavirus-related small business administration disaster loan program.
Overall, the cases studied described attempts to divest more than $ 170 million.
“We will focus on these types of cases in the future,” said Rabbitt. He said most fraud cases were divided into two main types – larger criminal rings and “individuals or small groups acting alone”.
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