A 42-year-old citizen of the Republic of Benin, Jose Biaou, has been sentenced to seven-year jail term for defrauding U.S. taxpayers of over $3.5 million through COVID-19 emergency relief programmes.

Evidence showed that Mr Biaou applied for over $5 million in loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) schemes on behalf of FRB Capital Group LLC and Millenium Global Finance, a non-existent company.

He submitted a counterfeit birth certificate to support his EIDL applications, which he created using a copy of his minor daughter’s birth certificate. 

He also falsely claimed to be a U.S. citizen and inflated employee numbers and other financial information when seeking federal emergency funding for his brokerage firm, FRB Capital Group.

He also applied for forgiveness of one of the PPP loans, submitting false information about how the business had spent the funds during the pandemic.
Through the fraudulent applications, he received $1.25 million in PPP funds for Millenium Global Finance, claiming that the company had 52 employees and an average monthly payroll of more than $520,000 throughout 2019.

Mr Biaou was found guilty on February 17 by a federal jury on six counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.

In addition to the seven-year prison sentence, the judge, Christopher Cooper, ordered him to serve 24 months of supervised release and pay $3,417,542.77 in reimbursement.

The case was investigated by the United States Postal Inspection Service’s Washington Division and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sungtae Kang.