LOS ANGELES
Federal authorities Monday arrested a Temecula man on federal fraud charges that allege he stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), according to officials.
He allegedly got more than $7 million in PPP loan funds on behalf of his company that purports to repair potholes, officials stated.
Oumar Sissoko, 59, was arrested pursuant to a four-count wire fraud indictment that was returned by a federal grand jury on April 13.
According to the indictment, Sissoko obtained a $7.25 million loan for his company, Road Doctor California LLC, after submitting a PPP loan application in April 2020.
He claimed that Road Doctor was in the process of hiring 450 full-time employees and would have average monthly payroll expenses of $2.9 million.
When he applied for the loan, Sissoko acknowledged the funds would be used to retain workers and maintain payroll or make mortgage interest payments, lease payments, and utility payments.
In the days after the PPP loan was funded on May 1, 2020, Sissoko allegedly misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars of the loan proceeds to use for impermissible purposes, including purchasing a luxury car for more than $100,000, paying off a loan on a different luxury car, and buying a computer for almost $6,000, officials stated.
“The impermissible uses also included a non-refundable down payment of approximately $100,000 to purchase a company located in New Hampshire, and the attempted transmission of approximately $150,000” to accounts in the African nation of Mauritania associated with a minerals exploration company for which Sissoko purports to serve as CEO, the indictment alleges.
If convicted, Sissoko would face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each of the four counts in the indictment.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act is a federal law enacted on March 29, 2020, and is designed to provide emergency financial assistance to the millions of Americans who are suffering the economic effects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
One source of relief provided by the CARES Act was the authorization of up to $349 billion in forgivable loans to small businesses for job retention and certain other expenses, through the PPP. In April 2020, Congress authorized over $300 billion in additional PPP funding.