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-19 relief fund scam, in which he invested a substantial amount in cryptocurrency, according to the Department of Justice. The US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York announced that Agnello had fraudulently obtained multiple disaster relief loans from the Small Business Administration, using the funds for personal gain, including investing approximately $420,000 in a cryptocurrency business. Between April 2020 and November 2021, Agnello submitted false information to the SBA, claiming the proceeds were for his autoparts and recycling business in Queens, including employee salaries. US Attorney Joseph Nocella stated that Agnello 'shamefully lined his own pockets with government and taxpayers' dollars' during the pandemic.
Agnello is not the only individual to have defrauded the government's Covid relief fund, with other notable cases including Bruce Choi, who illegally obtained $2 million in pandemic-related business loans, and David T. Hines, who fraudulently obtained $3.9 million.
According to the US Government Accountability Office, an estimated $135 billion, or up to 15% of the total funds, was 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, where he died of cancer at the age of 61.