The COVID-19 pandemic has been marked by a series of crimes, most of which have to do with the abuse of government power, but there has been one scandal in which the government was defrauded.
And that scandal was called PPP loans.
The Paycheck Protection Program was a COVID relief measure designed to keep small businesses afloat during the pandemic, but the solution backfired. Terrifyingly.
what happened?
Fraudsters seized the opportunity to game the system and $200 billion disappeared overnight, in a heist bigger than even the Bernie Madoff scandal.
– YouTubeLearn more
While you were trying to keep your head above water, 12 figures of your tax money was spent on “jewelry, luxury cars, first class tickets, fine dining and trips to South Beach,” according to BlazeTV. Alex Steintraveled across the country to learn how this massive robbery was carried out, hearing from experts such as Peter Schiff, Rep. Thomas Massie, and even a former FBI agent.
The fraudsters treated the program like their own personal piggy bank, but they're not the only ones to blame. The government's rules for the PPP were loose at best, and the government made the mistake of leaving the parameters up to the banks, who made billions of dollars on the loans.
And with the government footing the bill and lowering credit risk to 0%, banks, excited by the guaranteed profits, approved loans at unprecedented rates. From fake coastal farms to world-famous corporations, Nobody Whether they over or under received the PPP loan amount.
People were basically just signing up for free cash, and they were doing it shamelessly.
“There was a lot of buzz around this program. People were posting pictures of luxury cars they'd bought with PPP funding on Instagram, and fake LLCs were popping up all over the country,” Stein said.
But now the government is cracking down on these scammers.
Jeff Danick, a former FBI agent who worked fraud cases in the Miami FBI office for decades, said these scammers won't be able to hide for much longer.
“A tsunami is coming,” he warns.
On Wednesday, September 4th, “The Scamdemic: How Scammers Made Billions of Dollars” Blaze TV Exclusively for subscribers. Join the blimp-in-a-distance pimp as he dives into the murky world of PPP loans in search of the lost money. Of course, it wouldn't be a Primetime 99 special without an original rap track featuring Forgiato Blow.
If you haven't subscribed yet, blazetv.com Use promo code SCAMDEMIC to get a 7-day free trial and $30 off an annual subscription.
