A Maple Grove man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to fraudulently applying for more than $9.6 million from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a program established to help businesses survive and ride out the pandemic while keeping their staffs employed.
Between April 2020 and August 2020 Aditya Raj Sharma applied for 16 PPP loans totaling more than $9.6 million from 10 different lenders. Between May 2020 and July 2020 Sharma created three new technology companies, none of which existed before the pandemic hit and the creation of the federal PPP program: Kloudgaze Inc., Neoforma LLC, and Mokume LLC.
Lenders approved three of Sharma’s PPP applications for proceeds totaling nearly $1.8 million.
But according to a statement on the case from the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s office:
“Rather than using the funds for permissible business expenses, Sharma used the money to pay off unrelated legal debts, fund new business ventures, transfer approximately $14,000 to a financial account in India, and pay for home improvements, including landscaping and the installation of a $64,300 backyard pool at his residence.”
Sharma was the founder, president and CEO of Crosscode Inc., a cloud-based software development company that had been based in Maple…
