Luz Paulino owned and operated Agape Financial Services, a company that supposedly provided tax preparation and notary services. Which it did. But only to assist in her schemes to steal from the U.S. taxpayer. Starting in 2019, Paulino filed false and fraudulent federal tax returns using the names and Social Security numbers of stolen identities and false information regarding wages, employers and dependents, among other things. Paulino then used the fraudulent returns to obtain Refund Advance Loans from a bank in the names of her victims. She cashed the loan checks using false identification documents with forged signatures she made to match the accounts. To conceal her involvement, Paulino worked using the identities two former employees of Agape. Which does not put her in a good position to earn any employer of the year awards.
In 2020, with the onset of the pandemic, Paulino upped her schemes. Using stolen identities of businesspeople living in California, Michigan, Indiana, she applied to the Small Business Administration for $2.1 million in COVID-19 Emergency Injury Disaster Loans. Paulino’s false applications listed fictitious companies that purportedly lost revenue during the pandemic. While her applications were fictious, her expenses were not. Paulino used the fraudulently obtained loan proceeds to wire more than $395,000 to the Dominican Republic and to buy a 2020 Cadillac for $86,000.
On October 14, 2024, Paulino was sentenced to four and a half years in prison in Boston for using stolen identities of taxpayers and businesspeople to defraud the Internal Revenue Service, a bank, and the Small Business Administration.
Kudos to the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force who marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with government agencies to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud.
Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “Massachusetts woman sent to prison for $2.1M in COVID relief fraud’ published by WWLP News on October 14, 2024
A Massachusetts woman who owned a tax preparation company was sentenced to prison for bank fraud and $2.1 million in Covid relief fraud. According to the Department of Justice, 42-year-old Luz Paulino owned and operated Agape Financial Services, a Lowell-based company that provided tax preparation and notary services.
She allegedly filed false and fraudulent federal tax returns for the calendar year 2019 using the stolen identities, names, and Social Security numbers of individual victims.
