Here are a few people who completely took advantage of the Pandemic!
4 - A Family Affair Top Quality Contracting
Three days after Congress approved the $2.2 trillion economic relief package during the
pandemic in March 2020, Richard Ayvazyan and his wife, Marietta
Terabelian, applied for a $112,000 loan using the aliases Iuliia Zhadko
and Viktoria Kauichko. The first loan was filed for "Top Quality Contracting." One day later,
Zkadko and Kauichko requested a $150,000 loan for "Journeyman Construction." Since the government
was in a hurry to provide economic relief, the loans were approved almost immediately.
Lavish Spending The huge federal loan deposits
put sparkles in the couple's eyes. They spent the free money almost as fast as it poured in.
Meanwhile, they kept filing loan applications using sham companies. By August 2020,
they'd applied for 151 loans totaling more than $18 million in pandemic relief funds.
They invested $640,000 of the money in a Mediterranean-style hillside villa
in Tarzana, California, with a view of the Valley.
They bought gold coins, diamond earrings, wristwatches, and more.
One of Ayvazyan's most luxurious purchases was a $35,000 Rolex he
bought while on vacation with his wife in Turks and Caicos.
They also had $450,000 in cash stuffed in grocery bags littered across their property.
They went on fancy tropical vacations and bought more high-end items for themselves.
Busted The FBI started trailing Ayvazyan
and Terabelian after noticing suspicious amounts of money entering their accounts. For months,
authorities searched their trash and bank records until they had enough evidence for a case.
The couple was on their way home from a Caribbean beach vacation when they were flagged by customs
during a layover in Miami. Customs agents led them away to search their luggage and phones.
They discovered the couple was carrying credit cards in the names of their aliases,
Iuliia Zhadko and Viktoria Kauichko—the same names
they used to fill out millions of dollars in loan applications. It seemed Ayvazyan
and Terabelian were operating a family fraud ring that hadn't properly covered its tracks.
After hours of questioning, Ayvazyan and Terabelian were arrested and held in jail
for the night. But, two weeks later, FBI agents and a SWAT team showed up at the
family's Tarzana's estate in the early morning and raided the couple's 2.6-acre property.
Terabelian, who was out on bail at the time, ran out the back door and tossed
a grocery bag into the bushes. Agents located the grocery bag and emptied it,
finding almost half a million in cash. The kids and the family dog emerged from the house
and stood on the pool deck as authorities ransacked the home, looking for evidence.
On June 25, 2021, a Los Angeles federal jury convicted Ayvazyan, Terabelian, and two relatives
of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to launder money, and other crimes. Four accomplices
also pleaded guilty. In total, the FBI arrested eight different people involved with the scam.
The jury decided that the government could confiscate the house,
jewelry, gold, and all other items purchased with the pandemic relief
money that should have been used to save American businesses and careers.
On the Run The criminal case became a family
scandal when Ayvazyan's younger brother, Artur, took the witness stand and blamed most of the scam
on his wife, Tamara Dadyan. The already-strained marriage between Artur and Dadyan worsened when
they blamed each other for the family fraud ring. Artur insisted that Dadyan committed
all of the crimes on her side of the house while he ran his trucking business outside of the home.
When asked about the photos of fake IDs on his phone, he
blamed his wife again. He said she never showed him any of the government loan applications she
filed. But when loan deposits were made to his bank account, he had no problem spending them.
He received $285,000 in pandemic relief funds and admitted to using some of it to buy supplies and
repairs for his trucking company. He also bought a $24,000 Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He invested
$93,000 of it in an escrow company to help his brother purchase their Tarzana hillside estate.
After sentencing in June 2021, Dadyan was supposed to report to prison in January 2022
to serve a ten-year prison sentence. But she never arrived. By February 2022,
she was declared a fugitive and fled to Europe. Her whereabouts were unknown,
and the FBI offered a $20,000 reward for any tips related to her disappearance. Dadyan convinced
her brother-in-law, Richard Ayvazian, and his wife, Terabellian, to go on the run with her.
Federal employees believe the three of them cut off their ankle monitor
bracelets after their convictions in June. Authorities finally found them in February
2022 in Montenegro. Spanish officials deported them to the US shortly after.
Richard Ayvazyan was sentenced to 17 years in prison, and Terebelian was sentenced to six.
Artur Ayvazyan, Richard's brother and Dadyan's estranged husband,
was sentenced to five years behind bars. Dadyan was sentenced to ten years and ten months.
3 - Scammer on Fire Bush Fires
Our story begins in the Black Summer when massive bushfires tore through Australia
between 2019 and 2020. As of October 2020, the fires had burnt up to 84 million acres
of land and 5,900 buildings, including 2,779 homes. Sadly, the fires also claimed 24 lives.
The blaze also affected three billion creatures, mostly reptiles. Some species were driven to
extinction while air quality dropped to hazardous levels. An estimated $103 billion was needed
to recover property and economic losses. Millions of Australian lives were affected,
and the economy suffered endlessly. This only got worse when Covid-19 struck the continent.
On January 6, 2020, the federal government allocated $2 billion
for bushfire recovery. The money was divided between primary producers,
mental health providers, local governments, charities, financial counselors,
young people, and other forms of emergency funding to help get Australian citizens
back on their feet. But sometimes, the money didn't end up in the right hands.
Ellen Howard That's where
Ellen Howard comes in. Howard, an unemployed woman in her 30s, applied for relief payments
in the states of New South Wales and Victoria, even though she didn't live in either state.
She scammed the New South Wales local government by claiming her house burnt down in the bushfires.
She forged fake identity documents to prove she lived there and hoped to get her hands
on a $10,000 emergency payment. Though Howard's home was damaged from fire,
it wasn't from the bushfires.
Instead, a domestic dispute between her and an ex-partner led to an accidental
fire in the house. Still, she successfully secured the $10,000 payment and then received
$93,000 more in subsidies, taking money away from the people who really needed it.
Howard's greedy ways escalated when she saw
new opportunities for scamming the government during the pandemic.
When the Australian state of Victoria went into lockdown during Covid-19,
Howard claimed her career was negatively affected, even though she was already unemployed.
Howard didn't even live in Victoria. She applied for $450 support payments–13 times,
stealing identity documents from family, friends, and total strangers.
As a result, some individuals and businesses couldn't make their claims
or receive relief money because the government thought those payments had already been sent out.
Howard successfully obtained $104,000 and tried to secure $258,000 more in government
and charity disaster relief funding. Howard thought the money was simply 'there for the
taking' and received the deposits easily after submitting fraudulent applications.
And with that money, she went on shopping sprees,
such as buying a new wallet from Louis Vuitton and posting it on facebook!
In all, Howard used multiple bank accounts and email addresses to apply for 34 relief payments.
Aftermath Like all of the other scams, the
government finally caught up with her. In November 2020, Howard was arrested and refused bail on 16
charges of dishonestly obtaining financial benefit by deception. Police found a ledger
full of email addresses used to file fraudulent loan applicants on her when she was arrested.
The prosecutor said Howard was in a world of trouble. She failed to show up to court
several times, and multiple warrants were issued for her arrest. The legal aid lawyer proposed
very strict bail conditions, which were denied to add more restrictions to her Internet use.
She pleaded guilty to 11 counts of fraudulently claiming bushfire payments in New South Wales
and 13 counts of fraudulently claiming lockdown payments in Victoria. She admitted to
16 dishonesty charges that amounted to $250,000 in funds from the Tasmanian government and charities.
2 - Unvaccinated CDC Cards
Two New York nurses took advantage of their role in the pandemic and made more than $1.5 million
in crafting fake vaccination cards. They obtained real vaccine doses,
CDC vaccination cards, and syringes from the New York State Department of Health. However, they
skipped the first part of the process… you know… the vaccination part, and went right to the cards.
Marissa Urraro wrote out the fake CDC cards, and her boss,
Julie DeVuono, input the fake information into the New York State health department database.
DeVuono was a Nurse Practitioner who owned Wild Child Pediatric Healthcare in Amityville,
Long Island, where Urraro worked as a Nurse.
The two nurses teamed up to sell fake adult vaccination cards for $220 each and children's
cards for $85 each. Then, they'd enter the information into the New York health system's
website, so it was on record that these patients received the vaccine even though they didn't.
The Take The women made over $1.5
million in profits from the scheme. This equates to roughly 6,800 adult vaccination cards or
17,000 pediatric cards. Since they ran a pediatric facility, they probably handed
out the cards to entire families. Let's say a "family" equals two adults and two kids.
That means they handed out fake vaccine cards to about 2400 families, charging $610 per family.
With all of these fake cards floating around Long Island, someone probably
showed off or talked about what the nurses at Wild Child Pediatric were doing. Not only that,
but local businesses noticed an odd number of patients entering
Wild Child Pediatric and reported their suspicions to the police.
Busted DeVuono and Urraro's criminal
activity was uncovered when they wrote out a fake vaccination card for an undercover detective who
never received the jab. Then, police obtained a search warrant for DeVuono's home. They discovered
nearly $1 million in cash and a ledger showing almost $1.5 million in profits when they entered.
The nursing duo apparently ran the scheme since November 2021. They were arrested in January 2022,
pleaded not guilty, and released without bail. However, both were charged with felony forgery. A
third accomplice was receptionist Brooke Hogan, who was also arrested for her help
in conducting the fake vaccination card scam. She was charged with felony forgery as well.
Plot twist! DeVuono's husband is an NYPD officer being investigated for potentially
helping his wife fly under the radar and even referring potential customers to her.
The Suffolk County District Attorney publicly shamed the nurses for using their jobs to endanger
public health, even though they were supposed to be protecting it. And for what? To make a buck?
Urraro's attorney asked the public to consider his client's career
and all of her contributions to healthcare before this scandal.
1 - The Mayor’s Daughter Damara Holness
When the US government announced the PPP program, Damara Holness decided she wanted
a piece of the pie. Damara the former Mayor of Broward County, Florida’s, daughter. At the time,
she owned Holness Consulting Inc., a political consulting firm operating out of South Florida.
However, the firm was inactive, and had been since 2018. Then, when the
government announced the PPP Program, Holness Consulting suddenly appeared back on the map.
In her online application, Holness said her company employed 18 people and paid out
$120,000 in payroll each month during 2019—a year when the business
WASN’T operational. In return, Holness got a juicy check for $300,000. All it
took were a few fraudulent payroll tax forms and a frantic federal government.
However, Holness knew she had to “clean” the money. So, in a sued-money laundering scheme,
she paid 22 different people $1,300 every two weeks. They’d cash their checks,
pocket $300, and give Holness the other 1,000.
The US was ripe with Covid relief fraud, and it wasn’t long before the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement
Task Force caught up to her. Her lawyer called it an act of desperation rather than greed,
saying most of the money went toward taxes and housing arrangements. Still,
it didn’t change the fact that she lied on her application and swindled money
away from businesses that needed it. In the end, a judge sentenced Holness
to 20 months in jail and ordered her to pay back the $300,000 she stole.
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Let us know in the comment section who you think has more credibility,
the CDC or the Chinese government!