Carmine Agnello, grandson of notorious mob boss John Gotti, has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for defrauding the US government's Covid-19 relief funding system of $1.1 million, with a significant portion of the proceeds being invested in cryptocurrency, according to the Department of Justice. In a statement released by the US Attorney's Eastern District of New York office, it was revealed that Agnello had fraudulently obtained multiple disaster relief loans from the Small Business Administration and used the funds for personal gain, including investing approximately $420,000 in a cryptocurrency business. The fraud occurred between April 2020 and November 2021, during which Agnello submitted false information to the SBA, claiming the proceeds were for his autoparts and recycling business in Queens, including employee salaries.
'During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the defendant shamelessly lined his own pockets with government and taxpayers' dollars, which he must repay as part of today's sentence,' stated United States Attorney Joseph Nocella. Agnello's case is not an isolated incident, as numerous individuals have been convicted of defrauding the government's Covid relief fund, including Bruce Choi, who illegally obtained $2 million in pandemic-related business loans to purchase cryptocurrency, and David T. Hines, who fraudulently obtained $3.9 million from relief funds to buy a Lamborghini. According to statistics from the US Government Accountability Office, an estimated $135 billion, or up to 15% of the total funds, was lost to scams related to Covid-19 relief.
Agnello's grandfather, John Gotti, was a notorious figure who exerted power through brutal violence and amassed a significant fortune through various illicit ventures, including extortion, illegal gambling, loan-sharking, and stock fraud, before being convicted and sentenced to federal prison, where he died of cancer at the age of 61.