Pandemic Grifter: Indian Charged in $8 Million COVID-19 Relief Fraud Scheme
- Upon returning to his home country, Abhishek Krishnan, 40, allegedly submitted numerous fraudulent PPP loan applications to a federally insured bank.
Abhishek Krishnan of Wake County, North Carolina, who has now returned to India, has been charged this week in an $8 million COVID-19 relief fraud scheme. After returning to his home country, the 40-year-old “allegedly submitted numerous fraudulent PPP loan applications to federally insured banks, including on behalf of purported companies that were not registered business entities,” according to a Department of Justice press release.
Those fraudulent loan applications “allegedly included false statements about the companies’ employees and payroll expenses, as well as falsified tax filings,” the DoJ said. On the applications, the Indian citizen used the name of another person without that person’s authority. The DoJ notes that Krishnan “allegedly submitted at least 17 PPP loan applications seeking over $8.2 million,” He is said to have received “more than $3.3 million in loan proceeds,” the DoJ says, which he “allegedly laundered.”
Krishnan is charged with two counts of wire fraud, two counts of money laundering, and two counts of aggravated identity theft. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on each of the top counts and a mandatory minimum of two years in prison on each count of aggravated identity theft.
In a separate case, Krishnan was recently charged in the Eastern District of North Carolina with theft of government property and aggravated identity theft regarding his alleged receipt of unemployment insurance benefits funded by the federal government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.