Authorities were arrested this week after two Customs Office officials allegedly received nearly $150,000 from a Covid-19 pandemic relief program targeting small business owners, using two fake businesses to illegally demand.
Amer Aldarawsheh, 45, was charged Wednesday with five counts of wire fraud. He is accused of intentionally misleading US small business management and misleading loan funds, according to a US lawyer’s office.
He pleaded not guilty.
In 2020 and 2021, prosecutors applied for loans under the SBA’s Economic Injury and Disaster Loan Program on behalf of two businesses called San Bernardino-based trucking and freight companies. Ameral is an auto repair company.
However, investigators later discovered that neither company had “significant business or employees,” according to a statement from the U.S. Lawyer’s Office.
“Aldaroche deliberately misappropriated and misappropriated the EIDL fund he received from the SBA for his own personal gain,” federal prosecutors alleged in a statement, declaring the December 2020 transfer of the loan fund to a bank account “under his control.”
Aldalocheshe, who faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, has been released on a $30,000 bond, authorities said. A representative from US Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding his employment status.
The Small Business Administration estimates that it has given over $200 billion in fraudulent funds through its Covid-19 era disaster loan program to distribute relief more quickly.
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