Carmine Agnello, the grandson of notorious mob boss John Gotti, has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for his role in a Covid-19 relief fund scam, in which he fraudulently obtained $1.1 million and invested a significant portion in cryptocurrency ventures, according to the Department of Justice. The US Attorney's Eastern District of New York office revealed that Agnello had submitted false information to the Small Business Administration to secure multiple disaster relief loans, which he then used for personal gain, including investing around $420,000 in a cryptocurrency business. Agnello will begin his prison term on July 1 and has been ordered to repay the funds as part of his sentence. The case is one of many instances of fraud related to Covid-19 relief funds, with statistics from the US Government Accountability Office suggesting that up to 15% of the total funds were lost to scams, amounting to roughly $135 billion.
Agnello's grandfather, John Gotti, was a powerful figure in organized crime, earning an estimated $500 million annually from various illicit activities, including extortion, loan-sharking, and stock fraud, before being convicted and sentenced to prison, where he died in 1992.