Millions in PPP, Other COVID-19 Relief Funds Went to Gangs, Fueled Chicago’s Illegal Gun Market; Florida Family Sentenced for Selling Bleach as COVID-19 Cure Out of Fake Church, and other C-Virus related stories
Millions in PPP, other COVID-19 relief funds went to gangs, fueled Chicago’s illegal gun market:
When COVID-19 struck in 2020, the government quickly put together massive aid programs to help struggling businesses, along with the people who lost their jobs.
But other kinds of enterprises with names like the Traveling Vice Lords and the Wild 100s — criminal street gangs in Chicago and across the country — soon figured out how to take advantage of that safety net. They defrauded those programs of millions of dollars that they used to buy guns and drugs, according to the U.S. Justice Department and court records.
Incarcerated crooks were in on the act, too. The government estimates that, across the country, at least one-quarter of a billion dollars in fraudulent unemployment insurance benefits went to inmates in federal prisons.
It was no secret how to cheat the system. Tennessee rapper Nuke Bizzle got six years in prison after admitting he pocketed more than $700,000 in bogus COVID-19 unemployment insurance benefits. He glorified the scams in a YouTube music video that got almost 290,000 views.
“You gotta sell cocaine. I just file a claim,” the 34-year-old rapper, whose real name is Fontrell Baines, brags on the video.
In Chicago, the price of illegal guns soared during the pandemic, but gangs were able to pay for them with fraudulent COVID-19 relief proceeds, according to federal agents. In Milwaukee, a gang member even used ill-gotten coronavirus relief benefits to pay for a man to be killed, authorities say. —>READ MORE HERE
Florida family sentenced for selling bleach as COVID-19 cure out of fake church:
A Florida father and his three sons will spend years in prison after they were convicted on fraud charges for selling bleach as a COVID-19 cure.
Mark Grenon, 66, and son Joseph Grenon, 36, who fled to Colombia after the federal government first announced charges against them, were each sentenced to five years behind bars — the maximum sentence agreed upon between the US and the South American country during the pair’s extradition.
Mark Grenon’s other two sons, Jonathan Grenon, 37, and Jordan Grenon, 29, were each sentenced to 12.5 years in prison for conspiracy and contempt for trying to “defraud the United States by distributing an unapproved and misbranded drug,” the DOJ wrote in a news release.
They were all ordered to pay nearly $2,000 in restitution each.
“The defendants preyed on many vulnerable populations,” Assistant US Attorney Michael Homer said at the sentencing hearing.
The patriarch argued with a judge that he was actually a victim because he’d spent 1,152 days in jail.
The elder Grenon accused the government of “kidnapping” him, according to the Miami Herald.
He is asking the US to compensate him $5.76 million for being “held unlawfully.”
When asked if he would be awarded the hefty amount, the judge told him it was a “nonsensical question” and he wouldn’t “answer it.” —>READ MORE HERE
Follow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
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Research shows COVID-19 pandemic substantially changed commuting patterns, access to jobs
USA TODAY: Coronavirus Updates
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NEW YORK POST: Coronavirus The Latest
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