An Oregon man is being hauled off to prison for four years after pulling off a pretty elaborate scam, all in the name of Stonks. The Justice Department announced on Friday that it caught 51-year-old Andrew Lloyd swindling upwards of $US3.4 ($5) million from multiple federal COVID-19 relief programs, and then using that cash to buy 15,740 shares of Tesla stocks last year.
According to the DOJ’s announcement, Lloyd successfully managed to scam multiple loan programs from the Small Business Administration (SBA), a federal branch that has doled out upwards of $US6 ($8) trillion to the mum-and-pop shops that were financially slammed during the pandemic. Coincidentally, the same day that the DOJ made this announcement, the SBA’s inspector general found the agency had doled out an estimated $US3.6 ($5) billion in aid to parties that didn’t qualify for those funds.
Lloyd was obviously one of those guys that didn’t qualify, but the DOJ lays out how he was able to make off with the money anyway. Starting in April 2020, he began submitting loan applications to the agency using “numerous business names and personally identification information of relatives and business associates without their consent.”
“Lloyd submitted false documentation to justify the loan amounts requested, including IRS forms listing the 2019 wages purportedly paid by entities controlled by Lloyd,” the announcement goes on. “The loan application packages included some of the same…
