- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
A 48-YEAR-OLD tech executive of Indian origin has been sentenced to two years in prison in the US for fraudulently obtaining almost $1.8 million in federal Covid-19 disaster relief funds.
Besides the prison sentence, Mohan was also ordered to pay a fine of $100,000 and $1,786,357 in restitution.
Mukund Mohan of Clyde Hill in the state of Washington pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and money laundering in March this year, the US justice department said.
Mohan, who had past gigs in companies like Microsoft and Amazon, was accused of falsifying employment documents to fraudulently receive loans through the government’s Paycheck Protection Programme for companies that he reportedly ran.
He applied for $5.5 million in loans with false documents and received about $1.8 million before getting arrested in July last year. On Tuesday (24), he was sentenced to prison in the Western District of Washington.
As per the court documents, Mohan wanted more than $5.5 million through eight fraudulent disaster loan applications. He also gave fake and altered documents in support of the fraudulent loan applications, including fake federal tax filings and altered incorporation documents.
Mohan was accused of misrepresenting to a lender that two years ago, his company Mahenjo Inc had dozens of employees and paid millions of dollars in their wages and payroll taxes, the justice department added.
He submitted the fake incorporation documents and tax forms in support of Mahenjo’s loan application, suggesting that the company was in business prior to 2020, the department added.
Mohan reportedly bought Mahenjo in May last year and at the time of the purchase, the company had no employees or business activity. The incorporation documents that he submitted to the lender were altered and the federal tax filings that he submitted were found to be fake.
