A Los Angeles woman has been charged in an $18 million coronavirus relief fraud scheme after allegedly spending the funds on private property, business startup costs, and doling it out to relatives.
A federal grand jury indicted the suspect identified as 53-year-old Marisela Nuno in the case, the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Public Affairs announced Wednesday.
Nuno allegedly defrauded the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, officials said:
According to court documents, the defendant allegedly obtained funds under the PPP and EIDL program by submitting false and fraudulent loan applications that collectively sought over $15.7 million in PPP funds and over $2.6 million in EIDL funds. The defendant is alleged to have submitted applications on behalf of businesses and entities she purportedly owned, knowing that the applications contained materially false statements and misrepresentations concerning, among other things, the purported entities' number of employees, average monthly payroll, gross revenues, and eligibility for funding.
The defendant also is alleged to have submitted materially false supporting tax documentation with the applications. The defendant then allegedly used the loan funds for purposes not authorized by the PPP or the EIDL program, including for the purchase of private property, business startup costs, and payments to family members.
In June of 2025, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) told Breitbart News that bureaucrats allowed fraudsters to take $79 billion in coronavirus aid without using basic safeguards to prevent it from happening.
“Bureaucrats were asleep at the wheel and let COVID fraudsters take taxpayers for a very expensive ride, while small businesses in need were left out in the cold,” Ernst said.
WATCH — VP Vance Delivers Remarks on Combating Fraud:
Earlier this year, an official government watchdog located nearly $1 billion in COVID-era unemployment benefits that were in danger of falling into the hands of fraudsters, Breitbart News reported.
In addition, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said in April that Medicare and Medicaid fraud had reached such high levels partly due to COVID relief, according to Breitbart News.
“The question really is, how did it get so bad? And part of it is COVID, because when you start throwing money at problems, you don't watch where it's going, and fraudsters learn they can corrupt the system, because they never realized it was so easy to steal from the government, then they'll start to weaponize it and use it in other areas like Medicare and Medicaid,” he added.
Per the DOJ news release, authorities charged Nuno with three counts of wire fraud and one count of money laundering.
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