Speechless! A 35-year-old Chinese programmer was arrested by the FBI in the United States on suspicion of defrauding a US$1.5 million anti-epidemic loan

(Star those things about programmers)

There is a Chinese programmer???

Recently, a Chinese programmer "fired" on the Internet, a negative fire. ????

On May 22, the official website of the U.S. Department of Justice published a criminal indictment that a software engineer was suspected of scamming a $1.5 million epidemic relief fund.

Baoke Zhang, 35 years old, lives in Issaquah, Seattle, Washington. He was charged with wire fraud and bank fraud in a federal criminal lawsuit filed by the Western District of Washington.

Later, some netizens found matching information with the indictment. According to Zhang Baoke's LinkedIn public information, he has 10 years of software development experience and worked as a senior software engineer at Lyft before his arrest.

According to @安普若- nicknamed Principal An broke the news:

In 2002, Zhang Baoke was admitted to the Department of Computer Science of Huazhong University of Science and Technology as the regional college entrance examination champion, and won the first place in the four-year total score in the computer department where the masters gathered, and graduated with a full GPA.

In 2006, he went to the University of Florida to study computer science with a full scholarship.

His annual income: (basic salary + signature fee + stock dividends, etc.) is close to the million dollar level.

Judging from Zhang Baoke's resume, he is already considered the best among his peers. But with such a person, why would he venture to defraud 1.5 million US dollars?

How was Zhang Baoke involved in fraud?

According to the public indictment, we can learn:

The defendant (Zhang Baoke) submitted a number of false materials for loan applications in April this year in order to obtain funding guarantees provided by the Small Business Administration (SBA) through the Salary Protection Program (PPP).

Under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES), the program provides interest-free loans to small businesses to pay salaries and other expenses.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/software-engineer-charged-washington-covid-relief-fraud

What is PPP?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration passed a bill to provide a salary protection program called Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

The program allows small businesses to apply for loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to pay employees' salaries. If the company can not lay off employees within 8 weeks and at least 75% of the loan is used to pay employees' salaries, the loan does not need to be repaid.

Sounds a bit attractive?

Zhang Baoke took a fancy to the PPP plan, but he was not actually running the company.

then what should we do? One word: cheat!

According to the indictment, Zhang Baoke forged the information of two leather bag companies for his fraudulent application.

The first leather bag company profile he submitted shows that the US Internal Revenue Service assigned an employer identification number (EIN) to his sole proprietorship on April 3, 2017. In fact, the IRS assigned the EIN on April 3, 2020, just one week before he submitted the loan application.

According to his second bag company profile, he got EIN in 2018. In fact, the IRS only allocated EIN on April 21, 2020, which was two days before he submitted the loan application.

Zhang Baoke also provided the lender with a bank statement, claiming that the company had paid the payroll in December 2019. In fact, he only opened the account in April 2020.

Both the Employer Identification Number (EIN) and the bank statement have historical records. With such a big loophole, Zhang Baoke actually did this. It's a mystery operation. ┓( ´∀` )┏

At the beginning of May, the bank sent an email to Zhang Baoke asking about the difference in relevant document information. At this time, Zhang Baoke discovered that the lie was about to be dismantled, and he wanted to withdraw the application, but it was too late and the FBI had already targeted him.

@安普若- nicknamed Principal An broke out in the post,

FBI agents arrived at the door of Zhang Baoke's one-million-dollar mansion in Issaquah, Seattle, USA on the early morning of May 14 and called Zhang to ask him to open the door. No one answered the call.

Later, FBI agents saw an East Asian man who was close to Zhang Baoke slipping away from the backyard.

However, Zhang Baoke was arrested later.

A software engineer with an annual salary of one million can have a good life. If he is found guilty, his original promising future will be ruined.