California man charged with using $5 million PPP loans to buy a Ferrari, Lamborghini and Bentley

[Demovictory9]

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/California-man-charged-5-million-PPP-Ferrari-16165820.php

Mustafa Qadiri, 38, of Irvine was indicted by a federal grand jury on four counts of bank fraud, four counts of wire fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft and six counts of money laundering, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office of California.

Prosecutors said Qadiri’s efforts to obtain federal loans started in late May 2020 and netted him nearly $5.1 million in June last year.

Qadiri applied for the loans through the government program for four different companies in Southern California, all of which were not in operation, say prosecutors. He also allegedly submitted fraudulent company information, altered bank account records and stole another person's identity and Social Security number, officials say.

Beyond the luxury vehicles, Qadiri is also accused of spending the money on "lavish vacations," court documents reveal.


Some of Qadiri's cars have already been seized, prosecutors said, including a 570 horsepower 2011 Ferrari 458 Italia and a 2020 Bentley Continental GT Coupe. Both vehicles can sell for far over $100,000 in today's market.

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Additionally, $2 million from Qadiri's bank account was seized along with the cars by federal agents when he surrendered himself to authorities Friday morning, reports USA Today.

[flamingdem]

1. I thought only Florida man did things like this

Hmmm

[MontanaMama]

2. As a two time recipient of the PPP Loan myself...

I wonder how this piece of work thought he'd get away with this? The guidelines for using these funds are quite clear.

[budkin]

3. He'll blame cancel culture

Just watch

[albacore]

4. Cue the rightwingnutjobs....

"See... all those gubmint programs are frauds."

Never mind that they caught this dude...and lots of others.

Example:
Medicare prosecutes heavily for fraud, while private health insurers don't.

"To protect their networks and bottom lines, health insurers don’t aggressively pursue widespread fraud, making it easy for scammers. Then they pass the costs off to you."

https://www.propublica.org/article/we-asked-prosecutors-if-health-insurance-companies-care-about-fraud-they-laughed-at-us

[Loki Liesmith]

5. I admire his entrepreneurial spirit

He put a lot of effort into that fraud.

[jmbar2]

6. What a waste of money

[DFW]

7. This is common practice in Europe

My wife had a "client" when she was still an active social worker. He claimed he was physically unable to work (for a few hundred euros, many doctors will certify this), fathered 15 children, cashed in all the "Kindergeld (child rearing supplement) " for each one, and with the money, rented himself another apartment, while his wife/wives were in the apartment next door, having to rear the children by themselves. He drove a Mercedes, never learned German, and was untouchable due to his "refugee" status. This was a decade before the Syrians came, and he was not Syrian (he was Lebanese). He was taken to court, and the court declared that the payments were to continue, as he was a refugee, deserving of "tolerance" for his situation. The social workers went ballistic, as this meant less money for people who really needed it, but were powerless to cut back on the guy's scam.

In the Netherlands, a Romanian demanded welfare--as an EU citizen, any EU citizen can reside anywhere they want within the EU--, and then returned to Romania on a regular basis to legally change his name (a quick same-day procedure in Romania), and then register under the new name back in the Netherlands. He did this fifteen times. Once a month, he went around (also in a Mercedes) to the fifteen different welfare offices where someone with one of his names was registered to pick up his money every month. He was living very well for a while until his little scam was revealed in a newspaper article. I never found out if he was expelled (complicated under EU rules), or just limited to one welfare payment a month.

It's people like this that are like enriched fertilizer for the far right movements springing up all over Europe. The more they are "tolerated," the more assholes people like France's Le Pen, Germany's AfD, and the two neo-fascists running Poland and Hungary rub their hands with glee. Their "you-need-us-to-stop-these people" message is suddenly accorded a semblance of legitimacy it neither had nor deserved.

I hope California or the Feds come down on this guy like a ton of bricks so that the Republicans can't use him like a poster child (à la Europe) to show us all why Biden's program "isn't working." If he is forced to make restitution and locked up for ten years, the Republicans won't be able to use him as a poster child to demonstrate how "full of loopholes" the Biden program is. By and large, Biden has saved millions from utter destitution. Scam artists like Qadiri are stealing from them, nothing less.