The nine arrests filed by federal authorities this morning for fraud in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program include a scheme involving about 12 people and resulted in the theft of a total of $ 419,580, the Chief of the United States reported Attorney today, Tuesday. , Stephen Muldrow.
According to Muldrow, the arrangement consisted of providing false information to the Labor Department in order to receive PUA benefits.
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[AHORA] The US law firm provides details on federal arrests for PUA fraud.
Posted by Metro Puerto Rico on Tuesday, April 13, 2021
“The defendants engaged in deceptive conduct to fraudulently fill in various Department of Labor checks with false Social Security numbers,” Muldrow said at a Hato Rey news conference.
“The defendants received unemployment benefits by mail, in the form of checks, knowing they were not authorized to receive them,” he added.
This morning’s arrest has been filed against nine people. Of these, eight agreed with Millisen M. Martínez Medina, charged with aggravated Social Security identity theft from other people without their consent during the settlement.
According to the investigation released by federal authorities, Martínez Medina was the person responsible for leading the plan, along with the nine detainees this morning.
Martínez Medina is sentenced to a mandatory two-year prison term on charges of aggravated identity theft, in addition to 20 years for postal fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud, ten years for theft of public money, five years for social security number misuse, and three years. years of supervised release if found guilty.
The rest of the people arrested this morning were identified as Luis Cruz Reyes, partner of Martínez Medina, who received $ 64,992; Jonathan Rivera Gutierrez, which has obtained $ 44,148; Jennifer Hernandez Romero, which usurped $ 36,222; Mary L. Benitez Ortiz, with $ 32,628; Daniel Colon Diaz, with $ 68,250; Gabriel A. Robles Guzman, with $ 33,030; Denisse Sánchez Ortiz, with & $ 23,172; Luis A. Flores Diaz, which got $ 20,910.
On the other hand, three other people are accused of being part of the scheme, even though they are not related to the group arrested today.
Two of them are José Daniel Le Hardy Figueroa, a postal worker, and Cristoffer Perez VelezThey both have charges of postal fraud conspiracy and owe the government approximately $ 11,388.
Finally, the federal prosecutor’s office is being charged Fortunately R. Cruz Santana for fraud. He traded alone and appropriated $ 29,970.