Reports

Today, the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division along with the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the SBA Office of Inspector General, as part of a Heartland Fraud Surge announced the results of Operation No Doze, a surge of criminal enforcement actions targeting fraud in SBA’s small business COVID-era loan programs.

Attallah Williams, a former U.S. Small Business Administration and Internal Revenue Service employee, has been sentenced to federal prison for taking bribes to submit and approve more than $3.5 million in fraudulent pandemic relief payments.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - An Anchorage businesswoman was sentenced today to 3.8 years in prison for lying on federal loan applications and stealing identities to fraudulently obtain nearly $1 million in COVID-19 relief funds.

Twelve individuals have been charged for their roles in a conspiracy to commit bank fraud by depositing stolen checks and withdrawing the funds.

Following a weeklong trial, Carl Delano Torjagbo, a/k/a Karl Lucius Delano, was convicted by a federal jury of bank fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering after obtaining a fraudulent $9.6 million Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) loan and filing fraudulent tax returns that generated a $3.4 million IRS refund.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon announced today that more than $2.5 million was collected from a real estate developer and part-time resident of Vancouver, Washington, for fraudulently obtained Covid-relief program funds.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida remains a leader in COVID-19 pandemic relief prosecutions, holding a range of actors accountable for these crimes. Over this summer alone, the district has charged 17 individuals with COVID-19 relief fraud cases, with scheme amounts totaling over $21 million.