PPP Fraud: How a Californian AUSA Created a Smart and Efficient Precedent to Combat Inadvertent Loan Fraud
Monday, April 5, 2021
If there is a lesson from the cases involving business owners experiencing bank freezes or encouners with law enforcement so far, it is the impression that banks and Justice Department officials have tried to apply standard law enforcement protocols irrespective of the nature of the allegations or the size of the fraud.
It failed; it consumes vast government resources while risking over-criminalization. Not every hard-working but struggling business owner should face asset freezes and criminal prosecution just because, for example, they made a simple accounting error. To be clear, the vast majority of clients did not buy a new boat or a luxury car from loan money; they simply miscalculated the correct loan amount at a time when even their own CPA was understandably unfamiliar with the qualifying requirements.