TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Mar 26, 2021

The U.S. Department of Justice has charged 474 people over the past year with trying to steal more than $569 million through criminal fraud schemes connected to the coronavirus pandemic, the Washington Post reports. The department said it has seen fraud attempts connected to several government aid programs including the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loans program. Schemes include inflating payroll expenses to get larger loans than what otherwise would have been approved and reviving defunct corporations or purchasing shell companies to apply for large loans. Most of those charged, the department said, spent the government aid on houses, cars, jewelry and other luxury items.