Federal prosecutors so far have focused many of their investigations of Paycheck Protection Program fraud on those who obtained PPP money for businesses that didn’t exist or lined their pockets and made extravagant purchases. But the program, intended to help preserve jobs at small businesses, was exploited in other ways by the unscrupulous, according to a federal watchdog.
These are among the schemes:
- Business owners laid off workers so their companies were small enough to qualify for loans
- Business owners inflated payroll expenses to obtain more money
- Business owners did not use the loan money they received for their business
- Business owners lied about retaining employees
- Business owners who received loans refused to allow workers to return to work, telling them to continue on unemployment assistance
- Business owners falsely certified that the loan was necessary to support ongoing operations, even though they had substantial financial resources
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