Carmine Agnello, the grandson of notorious mob boss John Gotti, has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for his role in a $1.1 million Covid relief fund scam, with at least half of the funds invested in cryptocurrency, according to the Department of Justice. Agnello fraudulently obtained multiple disaster relief loans from the Small Business Administration, claiming the funds were for his autoparts and recycling business in Queens, including employee salaries.
However, he used approximately $420,000 of the proceeds to invest in a cryptocurrency business. The fraud occurred between April 2020 and November 2021, and Agnello will begin his prison sentence on July 1. The US Attorney's Eastern District of New York office stated that Agnello 'diverted [the proceeds] for his personal use, including by investing approximately $420,000 in a cryptocurrency business.' This case is not an isolated incident, as statistics from the US Government Accountability Office indicate that up to 15% of the total Covid relief funds, roughly $135 billion, were lost to scams.
Agnello's grandfather, John Gotti, was a powerful figure in organized crime, earning an estimated $500 million annually from various ventures, including extortion, illegal gambling, loan-sharking, and stock fraud, before being sentenced to federal prison in 1992.