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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.

BOSTON – The Massachusetts State Representative for the 16th Essex District, representing Lawrence and Methuen, was arrested today and charged with fraudulently obtaining over $700,000 in COVID unemployment insurance benefits and small-business loans, and using the proceeds to buy real estate and loan money to clients of his mortgage business, before he was elected to public office.

BOSTON – The Mayor of Lawrence, Mass., has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Boston. The 11-count indictment, unsealed today, charges the Mayor with allegedly obtaining over $1.5 million in COVID small-business loans. It is alleged that the money was used to fund his campaign account, pay personal taxes and pay more than $880,000 in high-interest, hard-money mortgages on properties he owned in Lawrence.

ABSALOM HALL pleaded guilty to wire fraud, tax, and money laundering charges.

BOSTON – A Fitchburg, Mass. man pleaded guilty today in federal court in Worcester to his role in a fraud scheme that used the stolen identities of more than 100 individuals to obtain $440,000 in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits from Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The defendant and his alleged co-conspirators also fraudulently obtained over $700,000 in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) benefits from Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio Washington and Nevada.

Ten individuals face federal charges stemming from a fraud and money laundering operation that targeted government loan programs offered by the U.S. Small Business Administration, including the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program and Paycheck Protection Program. In addition, two of the defendants were charged with laundering the proceeds of a fraudulent unemployment insurance scheme.

A Middlesex County, New Jersey, woman admitted that she fraudulently obtained Economic Injury Disaster Loan (“EIDL”), Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”), and pandemic unemployment insurance benefits.