In Latest COVID Relief Fraud Case Chinese Man Gets $59 Million, Launders Half to China

Though it has been years since half a dozen laws were passed to dole out trillions of dollars in COVID-19 relief, fraud and corruption continue to plague the mammoth pandemic cash giveaway with a recent case involving a California man of Chinese descent who fraudulently collected tens of millions of dollars and laundered the proceeds to China. It is like a kick in the gut for American taxpayers, who continue to get fleeced all these years later by the pandemic measures—including the $2.1 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) and $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan—that were sold as necessary to provide economic relief to workers, families, small business, industry sectors and others affected by the 2020 public health crisis. The reality is that corruption is so rampant in all the pandemic relief programs that the Department of Justice (DOJ) created a special COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force (CFETF) a few years ago to crack down on scams and recover some of the stolen funds. Shortly after its creation, the task force exposed over $2 billion lost to fraud with more than 3,500 defendants criminally charged.

That was two years ago and the problem continues. In this latest case Bruce Jin of Los Angeles operated a sophisticated scheme that presented fake businesses as legitimate ones that sold personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing them to exploit emergency relief funds. Federal prosecutors say Jin stole $59 million in pandemic relief funds and transferred more than half of it to China using accounts at banks across the United States created with stolen identities. This month Jin was sentenced to 12 years in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments in the amount of approximately $59 million, according to an announcement issued by the DOJ. “Unnamed members of the conspiracy, including some believed to be located in China, established thousands of accounts at banks across the United States using the personal identifying information (“PII”) of identity theft victims,” the agency writes, adding that from there, fraudulent claims were generated and paid to the accounts.

How could a years-long scheme that siphoned tens of millions of taxpayer dollars using the nation’s banking system avoid law enforcement detection? It is a question many have asked since Uncle Sam started handing out pandemic cash. Judicial Watch has investigated and reported extensively on the fraud, including government employees taking advantage of the lax oversight. A few years ago, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees were charged with stealing over a million dollars from pandemic relief programs to buy luxury goods, fancy cars, and travel. They easily withdrew the money by filing several false loan applications with two of the federal stimulus programs launched under the CARES Act. The disgraced federal employees used the illegally obtained pandemic relief funds to buy expensive designer clothes (Gucci), a fancy imported car (Mercedes-Benz), jewelry, trips to Las Vegas, manicures, and massages. The leftover cash was deposited into personal investment accounts. Each of the defendants submitted multiple fraudulent applications seeking at least tens of thousands of dollars in relief funds.

Even incarcerated felons have defrauded COVID relief programs from jail. A few years ago, a gang member serving 19 years in a California state prison operated a scheme that collected $25 million in pandemic unemployment benefits and another jailed convict used stolen identities to claim more than $1 million in unemployment payments. In first scheme the 31-year-old inmate submitted millions of dollars in fraudulent pandemic unemployment claims using stolen personal information of other incarcerated individuals as well as other civilians. Of the $25 million in fraudulent claims the government actually paid out $5.5 million, and the money was used to buy vehicles, jewelry, and other items. In the million-dollar scam, another California state inmate collected pandemic unemployment relief money using the personal information, including Social Security numbers, of fellow prisoners and other individuals to submit fraudulent claims from his jail cell. In the claims the inmate wrote that candidates had lost jobs from businesses or were unable to find employment due to the pandemic. It was that easy.