Almost 375 Illinois Govt Workers Implicated in Paycheck Protection Program Fraud
Chicago’s inspector general has at least 20 cases for the city alone.
Oh, look! More fraud is involved in the government’s COVID Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
Who would have thunk?
Illinois’ state executive inspector general’s office discovered that almost 375 government workers committed fraud related to the PPP.
The investigation started in 2022. From The Chicago Sun-Times:
Susan Haling, the executive inspector general, began the investigation in 2022. Her office investigates wrongdoing involving state workers and employees of some local government agencies, including the CTA and PACE.
The agency said Friday that it has found 373 people — out of 501 cases it has investigated involving suspected PPP fraud — engaged in some type of wrongdoing.
Investigations involving 54 workers were closed in the year that ended June 30, state records show. Those cases involved about $1.19 million in suspicious PPP loans, according to the state agency. Two of those 54 employees ended up being fired. The rest resigned.
About half of them admitted they had paid an underground broker to submit falsified loan applications on their behalf in exchange for kickbacks that ranged from $500 to $10,000.
A CTA bus driver told investigators he met his broker in a bowling league and paid him $10,000 to get $41,666 in shady loans, according to the state report. Other workers said they used tax preparers to fill out phony PPP applications.
Insanity.
A bus driver used $20,000 in loans to repaint her house and redo her floors.
Another employee used the loan to buy an SUV.
A few lied about having salons:
Some of the cases were very similar in nature. An Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services Office coordinator obtained a $20,832 loan for a beauty shop that purportedly earned $100,000 in income. In her interview, the employee admitted she never owned a beauty shop.
A DHS Mental Health Technician obtained a $20,832 loan for a beauty salon that had supposedly earned $104,807 in income in 2019. In reality, the business did not exist and was only a business on paper.
This isn’t over yet.
Deborah Witzburg, Chicago’s inspector general, has “20 long-term investigations into suspected PPP fraud involving city employees that remain open.”
I mean, this number is small compared to the national numbers.
But still, not shocked that so many Illinois government employees took part in the fraud.
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Comments
It’s Chicago – business as usual.
Chicago is only 20 cases. Chicago corruption spreads like a plague to much of the rest of the state.
So a three year investigation to find out about fraud committed five years ago? And we know the state attorney’s offices in Illinois will do nothing, so it is up to the DOJ.
The moment they find a straight white guy who committed fraud, they’ll prosecute him.
Another blue con state you say.
Well if I knew they were handing out free social security checks, I would have gone across the Biden border with made up identities like it was a freaking turnstile.
Manuel Monday
Tejas Tuesday
Pablo Wednesday
Tio Thursday
Fernando Friday
Ah! THAT’S why your underpants are embroidered that way!
(Fondly recalling a mild social “scandal” from the ’60s)
No wonder people love bigger government, free money, even if illegal.
It’s what the Dem politician platform is based on. Vote for me and I”ll give you someone else’s money.
It’s what happens when government throws gold bricks off the Titanic with no interest in following up to see if fraud is involved
I suppose Florida residents are lucky that the Florida PPP website was broken.
the other 620,000 are laughing at those 375
Are they all campaigning for governor?
Every government giveaway is fraught with fraud.
This article from 2022 shows just how massive the fraud and PPP loan theft was in Chicago and the surrounding high crime, high unemployment communities. Only a few were convicted or even charged.
https://chicagocitywire.com/stories/631687090-analysis-chicago-ppp-mania-1-in-3-west-garfield-park-adults-received-a-fed-ppp-payout-of-20k
We bolted to Cancun in 2021 Valentines Day weekend. I’d never seen so many black people who worked for the government in some capacity.
Great parents as well …they all left their kids at home. yes we chatted with many of them. Many middle age and not married couples.
The funniest part of the entire trip (next to my 8 year old daughter’s on stage Karaoke Cheap Trick) was the when the Bruno Mars – Lets Get Married song came on. 2/3 of the resort all sat back and avoided eye contact.
There was a story about a Chicago Public School teacher who posted a picture of herself on the beach during covid but protested kids going back to classroom because it was too dangerous.
Great story about the trip. Whenever you read a story about a shooting, the survivor refers to the other as their fiancee or states that they were engaged. No ring and no date set, but they were engaged.
Anyone who owned a business could see this coming.
During the faceless years, I got phone call after phone call from “agents” wanting to persuade me to apply for PPP loans, despite the fact that two of our businesses were literally Mom & Pop, and the other two were just Pop. You just knew these people were taking a cut, and if you had a business that really needed the loans, you didn’t really need those people to get them.
I got contacted I guess because I was a truck driver. I was a company driver but the people must have pulled the data on CDL holders and started calling. Let me tell you, the trucking industry was making money hand over fist during COVID