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An Orange County man who fraudulently obtained $5 million in pandemic reduction loans after which spent the cash on lavish holidays, luxurious sports activities vehicles and his personal private bills was sentenced Friday to 4½ years in jail, federal prosecutors mentioned.
Mustafa Qadiri, 42, of Irvine, had obtained the funds by submitting mortgage purposes to the federal Paycheck Safety Program, which Congress created in March 2020 to offer emergency assist to small companies struggling to outlive amid COVID-19 associated shutdowns and different enterprise interruptions.
The loans had been designed to stop worker layoffs, and recipients had been approved to make use of the funds on payroll, lease or mortgage funds or utilities, however not on private bills.
Qadiri filed the purposes in Might and June of 2020 on behalf of 4 separate Newport Seashore firms, none of which had been truly in operation on the time, federal prosecutors mentioned. Amongst different deceptions, he lied concerning the firms’ worker numbers, falsified financial institution balances and created pretend tax returns, officers mentioned.
Then, cash in hand, he began his private spending spree — together with by buying Ferrari, Bentley and Lamborghini sports activities vehicles, federal officers mentioned.
Federal brokers later seized the vehicles, together with greater than $2 million from Qadiri’s financial institution accounts, and a federal grand jury indicted him.
Qadiri pleaded responsible in July 2021 to financial institution fraud, aggravated identification theft and cash laundering. Along with his jail sentence, he was additionally fined $20,000 and ordered to pay greater than $2.8 million in restitution.
Neither Qadiri nor his lawyer might be reached for remark.
A number of buddies who wrote character references for Qadiri in federal courtroom described him as a caring and beneficiant man who grew up beneath his mom, an immigrant from Afghanistan, after his father died when he was a baby.
They described Qadiri as changing into profitable in enterprise early in life, then affected by alcohol abuse lately — which triggered him to lose his manner.
Qadiri requested in courtroom filings that he be thought of for the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ residential drug abuse program.
Qadiri’s case is only one instance of what authorities have mentioned is rampant fraud inside federal packages established to alleviate financial hardships created by the pandemic.
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