A man from Georgia (USA) obtained almost 80,000 euros in corona aid by providing false information. He buys an expensive Pokémon trading card with it.
Washington – A man in the US state of Georgia got 85,000 dollars (around 78,000 euros) in Corona aid * and bought a Pokémon trading card for just under 58,000 dollars (around 50,000 euros). As the responsible public prosecutor announced on Monday (March 7th, 2022), he has now been sentenced to three years in prison in a trial.
The 31-year-old pleaded guilty to one count of fraud and agreed to hand over the Charizard trading card. In addition, a federal judge ordered, among other things, the repayment of the loan and a fine of $ 10,000.
Corona help surreptitiously given false information – and bought a Pokémon card
In the summer of 2020, the man applied for a handsome Corona aid loan for a small business. According to him, before the outbreak of the corona pandemic, the company had ten employees and gross sales of $235,000. Based on this fraudulent information, he was granted and transferred the aid at the beginning of August 2020.
This is not an isolated case. During the corona pandemic, there were already frequent cases of fraud with state subsidies – also in Germany. With the help of invented corona test centers, for example, a woman stole more than one million euros. (Fee Halberstadt with dpa) *hna.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
