This past March, Rami Saab was sentenced to 10 years in prison for fraudulently acquiring loans during the pandemic. Saab is also required to pay $9.6 million in restitution. He and his co-conspirators applied for over $32 million in loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program (EIDL) for shell corporations. They fabricated information and provided false documentation to get the loans, then laundered the money through dormant bank accounts to use the proceeds for themselves. This is just one of the almost 800 people who have been indicted for COVID-fraud since the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act was passed in 2020.
Potential fraud cases investigated
The law enforcement arm of the IRS, Criminal Investigation (CI) has investigated 1,644 potential fraud and money laundering cases related to the CARES Act. Half of those cases have been opened just in the past 12 months. It represents about $8.9 billion in a wide range of criminal activity, such as money laundering and fraudulently obtained loans. CI protects taxpayers by ensuring fairness in the tax system and programs that are meant to benefit taxpayers, small businesses, and communities.
Ohio man sentenced to almost 8 years in prison
Terrance Pounds, a man from Toledo, Ohio was recently sentenced to 94 months in prison and ordered to pay over $4.2 million to the Small Business Administration (SBA) for his role in a scheme to get loans from the EIDL and PPP programs for nonprofit organizations. He is convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. He used the millions he obtained in fraudulent loans to purchase new vehicles, which have been forfeited to the government.
The COVID pandemic lockdown might be past us, but the fraud committed isn’t going unnoticed by the IRS. The IRS received additional funding under the Inflation Reduction Act, part of which is being directed to the CI for ongoing fraud investigations.
Dawn Brotherton is a Sr. Staff Writer at The American Genius with an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Oklahoma. She is an experienced business writer with over 10 years of experience in SEO and content creation. Since 2017, she has earned $60K+ in grant writing for a local community center, which assists disadvantaged adults in the area.
