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$2.4 Million in Loans Backed by Tax Returns Never Filed With the IRS, Then Wired to Egypt

Mohamed A. Awad, 61, of Ocala, Florida, was sentenced in Trenton, New Jersey, on July 25, 2024, to 36 months in prison for fraudulently obtaining over $2.4 million in federal Paycheck Protection Program loans and Economic Injury Disaster Loan payments. Awad had pleaded guilty on November 20, 2023, before Judge Michael A. Shipp to an information charging wire fraud and money laundering.1

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Awad obtained the loans through numerous misrepresentations to lenders, submitting fraudulent applications that fabricated employee counts and misrepresented company information, backed by falsified tax documents. According to IRS records, none of the purported tax documents Awad submitted in support of his loan applications had ever been filed with the IRS. He then transferred the loan proceeds among various accounts he controlled, withdrew significant sums in cash, and wired proceeds out of the country to banks in Egypt.1

He was first charged by complaint in July 2022, when prosecutors put the scheme at over $1.6 million; he was arrested in Virginia on July 21, 2022.2

Judge Shipp sentenced Awad to three years of supervised release and ordered restitution of $2.41 million and forfeiture of $1.49 million. The case was investigated under the District of New Jersey COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Strike Force, one of five such strike forces the Justice Department established nationwide. The investigating agencies were IRS Criminal Investigation, the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Social Security Administration's Office of Inspector General, the Federal Reserve Board and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Office of Inspector General, and the FDIC Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorney Katherine M. Romano of the Health Care Fraud Unit prosecuted the case.1

Documents cited

Notes

  1. U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey, "Florida Man Sentenced to Three Years in Prison for Fraudulently Obtaining $2.4 Million in CARES Act Loans" (original), July 25, 2024. ↩1 ↩2 ↩3
  2. U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey, "Florida Man Charged with $1.6 Million CARES Act Loan Fraud Scheme" (original), July 22, 2022. ↩
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