A federal court in the Southern District of New York announced on the 10th that three operators of a chain of nail salons in New York allegedly misrepresented the salaries of their employees to the federal Small Business Administration (U.S. Small Business Administration, or SBA) to apply for bailout money, fraudulently receiving 13 million yuan; the three were arrested that morning and charged with bank fraud, telecommunications fraud, misrepresentation to the bank The three were arrested this morning and charged with bank fraud, wire fraud, misrepresentation to a bank, fraud against the U.S. government, and face up to 45 years in prison if convicted, and two of them are also suspected of illegal human trafficking, and face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
According to court documents, Ngoc Manh Nguyen (also known as Peter Nguyen), 44, Victoria Ho, 31, and Dat Tat Ho, 33, and their families operated several “Victoria Nails & Spa” nail salons in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Long Island, New York. Between April and June of this year, the three men used false information to apply for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans from at least two banks, receiving more than $13 million in relief.
When they applied, they used fake pay stubs and tax returns and used the names of the same employees to apply for different stores in order to get more money. They deposited about $7.8 million into their bank accounts, and when they found out that one bank was delayed in accepting the deposits, they immediately looked up information on the Internet such as “how to get rid of the relief money” and “PPP fraud arrests,” and then they withdrew their PPP applications.
In addition, Ngoc Mann and Hodat were arrested and arraigned in federal court in the Eastern District of New York on October 10 on suspicion of trafficking in persons from Vietnam across the Mexican border and into the United States between January 2017 and September of this year, and then forcing those victims to travel to New York to work for low wages at their nail salon.
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