State Attorney Dave Aronberg of Palm Beach County has put together a task force with the sheriff’s office to help the FBI find people who stole COVID-19 unemployment relief money.
One of the people on the task force explained how this kind of theft happens.
Mark Berry, a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Deputy and member of the task force said, “PPP gives them a big loan, which they say is to keep the business open and pay the workers.” “And we find out that no one works there. And in many, if not most, of these cases, there is no business at all.”
The Payroll Protection Program had $100 billion stolen from it, the U.S. Secret Service says.
Aronberg said he doesn’t know how much fraud is going on in his area, but he has put together a task force to help the federal government catch PPP thieves.
One member of the task force said that people who didn’t deserve the money used it to buy expensive homes and cars and travel the world.
Aronberg said that the public wants people who steal taxpayer money to be charged with a crime and could get a long prison sentence.
Aronberg said, “It’s hard to get the money back because the money is usually spent.” “But we can put handcuffs on people, and that makes a big difference. You’d be surprised how that will get other people who may have cheated the government out of money to start paying it back.”
Members of the task force have already worked on cases that led to two PPP fraud arrests. The most recent one was a Boynton Beach man who was accused of stealing more than $400,000 from a PPP loan for a business that prosecutors said didn’t exist.
