PPP Fraud is ‘worst in history’: $200B Stolen and Blown on Lamborghinis, Beach Houses and Bling; Another Sad Story of Covid Fraud, and other C-Virus related stories

By admin On Jul 18, 2023

NY POST: PPP fraud is ‘worst in history’: $200B stolen and blown on Lamborghinis, beach houses and bling:

Tens of thousands of fraudsters splurged on Lamborghinis, vacation homes, private jet flights and Cartier jewelry by fleecing the PPP loan system in a $200 billion heist — and did it because the COVID loan scheme was so easy to milk.

Approximately $1.2 trillion was rushed through Congress in 2020 and 2021 in COVID bailout cash for businesses and spent on the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program (EIDLP) and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) schemes.

But a new report from the Small Business Administration’s Office of Inspector General reveals an astonishing 17% vanished to fraud — an estimated total of $200 billion.

And the SBA says it estimates there are more than 90,000 “actionable leads,” while it has already prosecuted dozens — including a former New York Jets wide receiver, Josh Bellamy.

The spending spree on taxpayer dollars includes Donald Finley, owner of the now-shuttered Manhattan theme restaurant Jekyll & Hyde, who purchased a Nantucket home across from Dionis Beach with waterfront views with millions of dollars from PPP and EIDLP.

Finley faces up to 30 years in prison, and paying more than $3.2 million in restitution, plus a $1.25 million fine.

And experts say crooks created fake businesses or lied about their numbers of employees to get access to more free cash — because it was so simple to fleece the taxpayer.

“The fraud was so easy to commit. All of the information was self-reported and none of it was verified or checked,” Haywood Talcove of LexisNexis Risk Solutions told The Post.

“During the height of the pandemic, it was really hard to purchase [luxury] items like a Rolls-Royce, or a high-end Mercedes because you had people walking in with cash from the PPP program to purchase those items for whatever the dealer was asking,” Talcove said.

Justice might finally be catching up with some of the fraudsters: A total of 803 arrests have taken place as of May 2023 for pandemic fraud, the SBA said. —>READ MORE HERE

WSJ: Another Sad Story of Covid Fraud:

Back in early 2020, some of us figured that shutting down the economy in a panicked response to Covid probably wasn’t a wise move. Reporting on the latest in a very long series of negative consequences from politicians’ reckless attempt to close society and then simulate prosperity with government spending, Jeanette Settembre reports for the New York Post:

Tens of thousands of fraudsters splurged on Lamborghinis, vacation homes, private jet flights and Cartier jewelry by fleecing the PPP loan system… — and did it because the COVID loan scheme was so easy to milk . . .

“The fraud was so easy to commit. All of the information was self-reported and none of it was verified or checked,” Haywood Talcove of LexisNexis Risk Solutions told The Post.

“During the height of the pandemic, it was really hard to purchase [luxury] items like a Rolls-Royce, or a high-end Mercedes because you had people walking in with cash from the PPP program to purchase those items for whatever the dealer was asking,” Talcove said.

The Small Business Administration explains:

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted this review to provide a comprehensive estimate of the potential fraud in the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) pandemic assistance loan programs. Over the course of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, SBA disbursed approximately $1.2 trillion of COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds.

In the rush to swiftly disburse COVID-19 EIDL and PPP funds, SBA calibrated its internal controls. The agency weakened or removed the controls necessary to prevent fraudsters from easily gaining access to these programs and provide assurance that only eligible entities received funds. However, the allure of “easy money” in this pay and chase environment attracted an overwhelming number of fraudsters to the programs.

We estimate that SBA disbursed over $200 billion in potentially fraudulent COVID-19 EIDLs, EIDL Targeted Advances, Supplemental Targeted Advances, and PPP loans.