Carmine Agnello, the grandson of notorious mob boss John Gotti, has received a 15-month prison sentence for his role in a $1.1 million Covid relief fund scam, with the proceeds partially used to invest in cryptocurrency, according to the Department of Justice. In a statement, the US Attorney's Eastern District of New York office revealed that Agnello secured multiple disaster relief loans from the Small Business Administration by submitting false information, which he then used for personal gain, including investing approximately $420,000 in a cryptocurrency business. The fraud occurred between April 2020 and November 2021, during which time Agnello claimed the funds were for his autoparts and recycling business in Queens, including employee salaries.
US Attorney Joseph Nocella stated, '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 caught defrauding the government's Covid relief fund, including Bruce Choi, who obtained $2 million in pandemic-related business loans for non-existent companies and used the money to buy cryptocurrency, and David T. Hines, who fraudulently obtained $3.9 million and purchased a Lamborghini. According to the US Government Accountability Office, an estimated $135 billion, or up to 15% of the total Covid relief funds, was lost to scams. Agnello's grandfather, John Gotti, was a powerful figure in the Gambino crime family, 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.