Sisters, one who is from Baltimore, are handed a Federal indictment after allegations they misused COVID-19 relief aid.
Dinara Sosa, who is from Reisterstown, and her sister Elza Lipartiva, who lives in Landsdale, Pennsylvania were indicted for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
The indictment is related to claims for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) made under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (aka CARES Act)
The CARES Act was put in place to provide financial assistance to people suffering from money problems because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The indictment was handed down on August 8 but just unsealed after Sosa and Lipartiya’s arrests on September 21.
According to the indictment Sosa and Lipartiva submitted over 25 PPP loan applications and 15 EIDL applications. They allegedly did this on behalf of multiple businesses and provided false information to multiple financial institutions and the SBA in order to obtain COVID-19 benefits.
The information included the submission of fraudulent IRS forms, false representations regarding the applying entity’s average monthly payroll, and false representations regarding the number of employees of the purported businesses.
If convicted, the defendants each face a maximum sentence of 30 years in federal prison for each count of wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
The District of Maryland Strike Force is one of five strike forces established throughout the country by the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute COVID-19 fraud, including fraud relating to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (“CARES”) Act.
The CARES Act was designed to provide emergency financial assistance to Americans suffering the economic effects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The strike force's focus on large-scale, multi-state pandemic relief fraud perpetrated by criminal organizations and transnational actors. The strike forces are interagency law enforcement efforts, using prosecutor-led and data analyst-driven teams designed to identify and bring to justice those who stole pandemic relief funds.
Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it here.
