GOODWILL INDUSTRIES OF NORTH LOUISIANA INC. 66625. Louisiana Department of Revenue Identity Theft Affidavit, Louisiana Workforce Commission Suspected Fraud Form. Government and federal taxpayers writ large arent the only victims of fraud in the pandemic lending programs. 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. Mr. Santemore's pleaded guilty on April 27, 2022, and was sentenced on July 25, 2022 but the terms of his sentence are under seal. It Got a PPP Loan. The Justice Department said law enforcement arrested defendants in Miami on Wednesday and Thursday who officials allege are involved in a "criminal ring" that attempted to steal $24 million in. Pursuant to the CARES Act, the amount of PPP funds a business is eligible to receive is determined by the number of employees employed by the business and their average payroll costs. Investigators determined there were at least 110 PPP sole proprietor loan applications in and around the Thibodeaux, Louisiana area and they all had the same invoices and federal tax forms (Schedule C) with the same business name and amounts. The PPP loans are forgivable under certain conditions and the loan forgiveness is not taxable income for federal tax purposes. During the programs first round, the Small Business Administration issued 5.2 million loans between April and August 2020. But the government could have implemented these safeguards from the beginning, which may have prevented significant levels of apparent fraud in the program. The PPP loan was created through the March 2020 CARES Act as a lifeline for businesses struggling through the coronavirus pandemic. 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. portville central school yearbooks; jennette mccurdy astroseek. Shes accused of making up fake businesses to collect more than $20,000 through a PPP loan and another $500,000 in prepaid debit cards through unemployment claims. Whether bad faith was involved is another matter. Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Amaleka McCall-Brathwaite, Eastern Region Special Agent-in-Charge of the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA-OIG), William F. Sweeney Jr., Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Jonathan D. Larsen, Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), announced today the arrests of NGOC MANH NGUYEN, a/k/a Peter Nguyen, VICTORIA DIEUY HO, a/k/a Vicky Ho, and DAT TAT HO for a fraudulent scheme to obtain over $13 million in Government-guaranteed loans designed to provide relief to small businesses during the novel coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic. judy norton children; court ordered community service california He allegedly sought to obtain a total of more than $1.5 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans, at least $937,000 of which he successfully obtained. 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 interactive map provides a picture of the ranks of the unemployed at the national, state and county level. While not all of these new reports can be attributed to the government relief effort, they are a sizeable share of the increase., Similarly, a February report by the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee stated that Identity theft is on the rise and has been exploited by bad actors to obtain pandemic response funds, such as unemployment insurance benefits, PPP loans, and EIDLs., Grossman told POGO, There are also PPP and EIDL cases were aware of that are being investigated by state and local authorities, because my agents out in the field get calls from state police and local police departments, where they have received complaints from citizens on identity theft, for example.. 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. Gibsland Bank & Trust Company. This table shows the top 5 industries in Louisiana by number of loans awarded, with average loan amounts and number of jobs reported. In other words, lenders and the Small Business Administration did not prevent the alleged fraud in these instances before taxpayer dollars went out the door. Seven of the approved loans were processed by Cross River Bank, a top Paycheck Protection Program lender that closely allied itself with financial technology firms. A check of Floridas Division of Corporations database would have revealed the companies had just been reinstated. 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. A vast number of referrals to the Small Business Administrations (SBA) Office of Inspector General involve complaints of identity theft, particularly related to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program. The oversight failures of the last year have become increasingly clear, eventually leading to changes. According to Grossman, the Small Business Administration watchdog official, all of our ongoing investigations involve individual borrowers rather than lenders. 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. Todays Internet search for PPP Loan Fraud Arrests will certainly produce an unwanted result one that includes the name of their company leading the headlines., IRS-CI Special Agent in Charge Jonathan D. Larsen said: In this difficult time when many Americans are struggling financially, it is repugnant that there are those who would fraudulently take advantage of relief efforts offered. On applications for loans for two companies, Greenberg Media Group and DG3 Network, Greenberg allegedly lied about not being under indictment despite having been arrested by federal agents and charged just days earlierwith the indictment a matter of public record. GOODWILL INDUSTRIES OF NORTH LOUISIANA, INC. BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION OF NORTHWEST LOUISIANA, ROSS H DIES DDS & BENJAMIN A BEACH DDS, LLC, Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting, Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services, Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services, Other Services (except Public Administration). To disguise the fraud, family members moved the proceeds through several bank accounts held in different names, according to the Justice Department. The Small Business Administration has said victims of identity theft will not have to repay the loans fraudulently obtained in their name, but some individuals have told media outlets the agency has not promptly resolved their cases. EVERY charged $45.00 to $120.00 from the individuals she recruited to prepare and submit the fraudulent PPP application. Showing 50 of 9,060 results. From at least in or about April 2020 through at least in or about June 2020, NGUYEN, VICTORIA HO, and DAT HO engaged in a scheme to submit online applications to at least two financial institutions for a total of over $13 million in government-guaranteed loans for the Victoria Companies through the SBAs PPP. The prosecution of this case is being handled by Assistant United States Attorney Brian M. Klebba, Chief of the Financial Crimes Unit, and Assistant United States Attorney Edward Rivera, COVID-19 Fraud Coordinator. The nonprofit MITRE Corporation found more than 85% of Paycheck Protection Program loan recipients did not indicate their race or ethnicity in their loan applications, Earlier this year, the Biden administration revamped the Paycheck Protection Program loan application to encourage self-reporting of demographic data and better illustrate the impact the PPP is having across various population segments. But the Small Business Administration acknowledged, as of late March, there is still limited demographic data on PPP borrowers.. 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. Click here for information on the investigation into the Mount Vernon Police Department. Ryan Summers is a research fellow for POGO. All rights reserved. Jean Rabbittand Kevin Aguilarwere charged with bank fraud and conspiracy to engage in monetary transaction charges. [1] As the introductory phrase signifies, the entirety of the Complaint and the description of the Complaint set forth herein constitute only allegations, and every fact described should be treated as an allegation. Identity theft is probably the most common underlying cause of the fraud that were finding, particularly in the EIDL program, SBA Inspector General Hannibal Mike Ware said in testimony before Congress in late March. The auditor found that the deficiencies were caused by an inadequate entity wide control environment.. Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said: As alleged, these defendants conspired to rip off the SBAs COVID-relief small business loan program and financial institutions by lying about how many people they employed in their family business and how much they paid those employees. (In late March, the Justice Department told Congress that it had charged $446.8 million in losses related to PPP. Some of these cases may still be under seal and charges are routinely being unsealed.) And I, I think we ought to prosecute every single one of them to the full extent of the law, said Kennedy. EVERY created all of the false and fraudulent invoices, bank statements, and Schedule Cs. PPP Fraud in Pride, Louisiana. In fraud cases where there is no apparent misuse of a loan, civil enforcement may be more likely than criminal prosecution. Published 8:46 am Sunday, September 11, 2022 . According to a court filing signed by a Secret Service agent, a family of four was behind a scheme 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.. But in March 2021, the Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General issued a report that found that lenders last year issued more than one Paycheck Protection Program loan to 4,260 borrowers with the same tax identification number and borrowers with the same business name and address. Those loans were worth a total of $692 million. PPP Loan Recipient List By State Louisiana 217,332 TOTAL PPP LOANS $12.2B TOTAL LOAN AMOUNT $56,095 AVERAGE PPP LOAN 6 AVG COMPANY SIZE Louisiana has a total of 217,332 businesses that received Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans from the Small Business Administration. This case was brought in New Orleans, Louisiana. Filed under investigation The largest loan paid out was $20,833. More due diligence on the part of lenders or the Small Business Administration could have prevented at least some instances of fraud, especially when applicants appear to have inflated or fabricated payroll expenses or used defunct or bogus companies to illicitly obtain loans. A borrower applied for a PPP loan from a lender or bank. Under the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, passed as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, (CARES II), individuals began receiving automatically a second round of Economic Impact Payments of up to $600 for individuals or $1,200 for married couples and up to $600 for each qualifying child beginning in December. A Project On Government Oversight (POGO) review of court filings up to April 2, 2021, found that the charged individuals allegedly sought a total of nearly $445 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans. Byron.Henderson@la.gov, On Friday, Feb. 12, LDR will begin accepting tax returns through, , the states free, electronic tax filing application; or through commercially available tax filing software. Inaccuracies in the data or missing data can undermine oversight. 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