back to article Ex-Microsoft exec admits he tried to swindle $5.5m out of taxpayers with COVID-19 relief loans for bogus biz

A former Microsoft executive has admitted he tried to rip off the US government by claiming $5.5m in COVID-19 funding for a string of fake businesses. Washington-based Mukund Mohan, 48, was charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering in July. And it all centers around loans from Uncle Sam's Paycheck …

  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Horst U Rodeinon
    Linux

    It's Micro$oft

    Why is bilking anyone out of money news?

    1. David 132 Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: It's Micro$oft

      Because he only charged the gov’t once, and didn’t try to lock them into a monthly subscription service?

    2. onemark03

      Why is bilking anyone out of money news?

      Presumably because in this and a few other cases, the guilty parties were caught and punished.

  3. Potemkine! Silver badge

    Robinhood brokerage account

    Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Covid bonanza!

    I wonder who's made how many millions from the flawed UK Test and trace scheme with reports of a projected final cost of £37Bn and will anyone be held to account. The IT director and former IT project manager of a household name global organisation told me he'd find it extremely difficult to spend that amount in the timescales applicable.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Covid bonanza!

      Indeed - and people keep voting for these self serving idiots!

      No one need be held to account becasue the first thing Mr "I have an 80 seat majority" did was to legalise the award of contracts with no scrutiny for the duration....

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Covid bonanza!

        >Indeed - and people keep voting for these self serving idiots!

        That was the nice part about the other lot, there were no massively wasteful govt IT contracts under them

        It's a pity we don't have "violent revolution" as an option on all ballot papers

        1. FIA Silver badge

          Re: Covid bonanza!

          It's a pity we don't have "violent revolution" as an option on all ballot papers

          You do, but you just have to scrawl it in your own blood.

    2. David 132 Silver badge

      Re: Covid bonanza!

      Well, hang on a mo. The actual story is a little more nuanced than "the government has given £37bn to its mates in Serco".

      Just to ensure that everyone is cognisant of the facts about T&T before they pile on to criticize it...

      This is a good explanation of the story.

      To quote from that link, emphasis mine:

      "First it’s worth noting that £37bn is the total spending envelope for two years of the programme – £22bn in 20/21 and another £15bn in the coming financial year, not what has been spent so far.

      Indeed, a recent National Audit Office report found that the Government had only spent £4bn up to October of last year (those figures will be updated soon in its spring report). That doesn’t mean the Government won’t end up spending all that money, but NHST&T as it stands is not £37bn-worth of a programme. Again it’s worth pointing this out when influential figures like former FT editor Lionel Barber are claiming that “the cost of Covid test and trace is to date a staggering £37bn”, because that’s not true.

      The way the spending is divvied out is also important. The Government has not done a good job of communicating how much of the spend is on testing, as opposed to tracing. Indeed, while the problems with tracing have been all too apparent, over 80% of the total spend is on testing, where the UK is actually doing pretty well – we’ve done around 100 million tests in total and can now do over 1 million in a single day. Again, it’s worth repeating this point because some people still seem to think the Government has spent tens of billions on nothing more than a misfiring app and some call centres."

      Before anyone thinks the article author is just a lickspittle apologist for the Tories, please understand that there's also strong criticism:

      "None of this is to exculpate ministers. The fact that the tracing system did not stop lockdowns is clearly a grave, expensive failure – not just of the system itself but of other policies like opening up foreign travel last summer, encouraging people back to work and university campuses and not locking down earlier when cases were on the rise."

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: not what has been spent so far.

        So when they abandon the 2nd part they can make an announcement that they have 'saved' £22bn or are the current lot too dumb even for that ?

    3. Justin Clements

      Re: Covid bonanza!

      Considering the readership of El'Reg, there will be quite a few people here that didn't mind HMG splashing all that cash nor their personal gain from it. So we probably shouldn't be throwing stones in this particular greenhouse.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How

    How does the IRS not even roughly know who is employed where? They have all the info they've ever asked for.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: How

      Because the IRS don't have a computer system.

      Because everytime the vote for "should the IRS have a massive systems overhaul to allow them to more effectively chase tax cheats" comes up a bunch of very rich people say no

  6. Claverhouse Silver badge
    Happy

    He learnt from the best.

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