Eight Brooklyn Men Charged With $2 Million Covid Relief Fraud

Eight Brooklyn residents face charges connected with a year-long scheme they ran that defrauded the unemployment system of approximately $2 million. 

According to a Department of Justice press release, Bryan Abraham, 18; Carlos Vazquez, 20; Angel Cabrera, 18; Armani Miller, 24; Johan Santos, 19; Gianni Stewart, 19; Andre Ruddock, 25; and Seth Golding, 18, were charged with conspiracy to commit access device fraud. The men fraudulently applied for unemployment funds using the names of people whose identities they stole. In total, hundreds of people’s names were used to obtain $600 weekly payments.

The eight men directly deposited the money into their bank accounts, sent checks to their homes, or had debit cards issued in their victim’s names. 

New York Daily News reports that six of the eight men were arrested on Saturday and released on a $75,000 bond. But both Santos and Miller had not been arrested as of Tuesday afternoon, the outlet reports.

On top of flashing their cash all over social media, the suspects were also seen on video surveillance withdrawing money from ATMs. One of the suspects, Abraham, was arrested twice in 2020. Each time he was arrested, he was in possession of numerous debit cards in other people’s names and large sums of cash. 

“This Office will not hesitate to bring the full weight of the law against defendants who would pocket public funds that are intended to alleviate the hardship of others,” Mark J. Lesko, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, wrote in the release.