A California financial executive has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison for orchestrating a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme that exploited federal COVID-19 relief programs.
Abraham Park, 67, of La Mirada, California, received a 46-month prison sentence and was ordered to pay $6,993,700 in restitution and $535,041 in forfeiture after pleading guilty to wire fraud and money laundering. Park, who ran a financial services company, admitted to filing more than 120 fraudulent Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) applications between March 2020 and October 2022.
According to court documents, Park directed clients to create fictitious businesses so he could submit false loan applications on their behalf. He then collected kickbacks once the funds were disbursed. Beyond facilitating fraud for others, Park also filed applications for himself and family members tied to non-existent entities. In total, 73 loans were approved, costing the Small Business Administration nearly $7 million in losses, while the broader scheme attempted to extract over $12 million.
Authorities emphasized that Park’s actions diverted critical relief from legitimate small businesses struggling to survive the pandemic. Officials from the Department of Justice, IRS-CI, FBI, and SBA Office of Inspector General stressed that the sentence demonstrates the government’s commitment to holding fraudsters accountable.
This conviction is part of a wider crackdown on pandemic relief fraud. Since the passage of the CARES Act, the DOJ’s Fraud Section has prosecuted more than 200 defendants across 130 cases, recovering tens of millions of dollars in stolen funds, as well as seizing luxury assets and real estate purchased with illicit proceeds.
The case underscores both the scale of attempted fraud during the pandemic and the government’s ongoing effort to safeguard aid programs designed to keep small businesses afloat in times of crisis.