The CAREs Act was established to provide economic assistance during the global health pandemic. One of the most important pieces of that Act was the PPP loan, which was set up to provide immediate financial assistance to businesses in the form of a Small Business Administration guaranteed loan to small and medium sized businesses in the United States that were adversely impacted by the economic uncertainties of the coronavirus.
Muhammad Noor Ul Ain Atta saw an opportunity to be the family favorite. Not only did he not have a business that legitimately qualified for PPP funds, but the proceeds he received did not go to a business, unless you count your mother as a business enterprise. On August 2, 2022, Atta pled guilty to federal counts of wire fraud and laundering of monetary instruments with the use of wire transfers. For Atta, he transferred PPP proceeds very far away.
Alta submitted a total of 11 fraudulent PPP loan applications for seven shell companies. He did all the things that fraudsters do with PPP loan applications. Submitted documents containing inflated numbers of employees and payroll expenses and written promise that he would use the loan proceeds for permissible business purposes. Based off the info provided, Atta received over $6.6 million in loan proceeds.
In one particular application that Atta filed on April 10, 2020, he used a shell company called Envisioning Future. From this loan he received about $2.5 million in loan proceeds. Immediately upon receipt, Atta wired about $1.2 million of the money to his mother’s bank account. In June 2020, Atta wired the remaining $1.3 million to a financial institution in Islamabad, Pakistan. The wire transfer details included a note that the wire was “family support.”
Who knows exactly what Atta’ dreamed for with a shell company called Envisioning Future, but his immediate future will include prison.
Great job by the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force in their efforts to combat pandemic-related fraud.
Today’s “Fraud of the Day” is based on article, “Riverside County Man Pleads Guilty in $6.6M PPP Fraud Case” published by City News on August 2, 2022
A Corona man pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal criminal charges in connection with a scheme to submit false loan applications that brought him more than $6.6 million in Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan funds.
Muhammad Noor Ul Ain Atta, 39, pleaded guilty in downtown Los Angeles to federal counts of wire fraud and laundering of monetary instruments, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
