Carmine Agnello, the grandson of notorious mob boss John Gotti, has received a 15-month prison sentence for his role in defrauding the US government's Covid-19 relief funding system of $1.1 million, which he then used to invest in cryptocurrency, according to the Department of Justice. The US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York announced that Agnello had obtained multiple disaster relief loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA) by submitting false information, and then diverted the funds for personal use, including investing approximately $420,000 in a cryptocurrency business.
Between April 2020 and November 2021, Agnello submitted false claims to the SBA, stating that the funds were intended for his autoparts and recycling business in Queens, including employee salaries. The US Attorney, Joseph Nocella, stated that 'during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the defendant shamefully lined his own pockets with government and taxpayers' dollars, which he must repay as part of today's sentence.' Agnello's case is not an isolated incident, as numerous individuals have been convicted of defrauding the government's Covid relief fund. For example, Bruce Choi was found guilty of illegally obtaining $2 million in pandemic-related business loans, which he then used to purchase cryptocurrency via Kraken. According to statistics from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), an estimated $135 billion, or up to 15% of the total Covid-19 relief funds, was lost to scams.
Agnello's grandfather, John Gotti, was a notorious figure who exerted power through brutal violence and was known for his flamboyant lifestyle. He was the head of the Gambino crime family, which generated an estimated $500 million in annual revenue from ventures such as extortion, illegal gambling, loan-sharking, and stock fraud. In 1992, Gotti was convicted on 13 criminal counts and sentenced to federal prison, where he died of cancer at the age of 61.