In March 2020, the U.S. government passed the “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security” Act (CARE) to allow companies hit by the epidemic to apply for loans. However, the federal government recently uncovered a case of telecommunication fraud. The man spent almost all of the loan he applied for on a Pokemon card.
According to the Washington Daily News, a Georgia court sued a man, Vinath Oudomsine, who applied for an EIDL economic relief loan for his company in July last year, claiming that it has 10 employees and an annual operating income of more than $235,000. The government approved and sowed a loan of US$85,000 for relief in August.
However, after 5 months, Oudomsine used the loan amount of 57,789 US dollars (about 1.61 million Taiwan dollars) to buy a “Pokémon” card. Although the prosecutor did not specify which card he purchased, but In the “Pokémon” card market, there are indeed many rare cards with very high prices.
In the end, Oudomsine was found to have misrepresented the number of employees and corporate income, and was prosecuted by a Georgia court prosecutor for telecommunications fraud. The maximum sentence of the charge could be up to 20 years and a fine of 250,000 U.S. dollars.
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