Chinese National Arrested for Fraudulently Applying for Millions in COVID-19 Relief Loans: DOJ

A Chinese national residing in New York has been arrested for allegedly trying to cheat the federal government and several banks in millions of dollars in loans intended to provide relief to small businesses during the CCP virus pandemic, the Justice Department said.

Muge Ma, 36, who is also known as Hummer Mars, has been accused of attempting to claim over $20 million in government-back loans for two of his companies—New York International Capital LLC (NYIC) and Hurley Human Resources LLC (Hurley)—by falsely representing that the companies had hundreds of employees and paid millions of dollars in wages to those employees when Ma appears to be the only employee in his companies.

Ma made false representations to the Small Business Administration and five banks in loan applications for relief under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Program, prosecutors alleged (pdf). {snip}

In order to support his loan applications, Ma submitted a range of falsified bank records, tax records, insurance records, payroll records, and audited financial statements, prosecutors said.

He also allegedly described one of his companies as a “patriotic American” firm and the other as a company that would “help the country reduce the high unemployment rate caused by the pandemic by helping unemployed American workers and unemployed American fresh graduates find jobs as quickly as possible.”

{snip}

{snip} Ma allegedly misrepresented his citizenship in the applications, saying that he is an American citizen when he is in fact a Chinese national with lawful permanent resident status in the United States.

{snip}

Prosecutors said that before the discovery of the alleged fraudulent scheme, the SBA approved a $500,000 EIDL Program loan for NYIC and a $150,000 EIDL Program loan for Hurley, and at least a $10,000 loan advance was provided to NYIC. Meanwhile, one bank granted $800,000 in PPP loan funds for Hurley, which has since been frozen after the alleged scheme was exposed.

{snip}