Billions In COVID-19 Relief Loans May Have Been Handed Out To Scammers, Report Says

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October 29th, 2020

A store displays a sign before closing down permanently following the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, on Aug. 4, 2020 in Arlington, Va. The Small Business Administration’s inspector general office said billions of dollars in relief loans may have been handed out to fraudsters or ineligible applicants.

Olivier Douliery / AFP via Getty Images

The Small Business Administration may have handed out billions of dollars in loans to businesses that falsely claimed to have been damaged by the coronavirus lockdowns, a report from the agency said on Wednesday.

Officials at the agency were so inundated with requests for disaster aid starting last March that they couldn’t adequately vet the applicants, according to the report from the Office of SBA Inspector General Michael Ware.

In one case, the agency approved 10 loans for 10 different bathroom renovation companies in the same city as part of the SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program.

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