On August 7, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Abraham Park, a 67-year-old Korean American from La Mirada, was sentenced to three years and ten months (46 months) in federal prison for COVID loan fraud tied to the Small Business Administration (SBA) Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program. The court ordered $6,993,700 in restitution and $535,041 in forfeiture.
From March 2020 to October 2022, Park submitted more than 120 fraudulent applications to the SBA’s EIDL program, seeking about $12 million in total. Of those, 73 were approved, and approximately $7 million was disbursed. Investigators found that, shortly after the pandemic began, Park directed clients to create sham companies to file false loan applications and then took a portion of approved funds as kickbacks. He also formed fake entities under his and his family members’ names to obtain loans.
The case was investigated by Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the SBA Office of Inspector General. Authorities noted that, since passage of the CARES Act, more than 200 people have been charged in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and EIDL fraud cases, with over $78 million in cash, real estate, and valuables seized.
BY HANKIL KANG [kang.hankil@koreadaily.com]
