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Thursday, Apr 25, 2024

Sunland Man Sentenced for Fraudulent PPP Loan

Andranik Amiryan, 42, of Sunland was sentenced last week to 41 months in federal prison for fraudulently obtaining a $650,600 Paycheck Protection Program loan, according to the Justice Department.

He pleaded guilty on April 28 to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

According to the Justice Department, Amiryan opened a bank account using a stolen identity, then, posing as the identity theft victim, he falsely told the bank that he was chief executive of ACBA Technologies, a Northridge-based software company. In fact, ACBA existed only as a corporate shell.

Amiryan’s co-conspirators arranged to wire into that account $650,600 of relief funds by falsely claiming that ACBA Technologies had a monthly payroll of more than $500,000 and attaching forged tax forms as support. Once the money was in the account, Amiryan wrote checks to his co-conspirators and to other shell companies, withdrawing about $452,287 before the bank froze the account.

Amiryan has been in custody since his arrest in this case in September 2020. At the time of his arrest, authorities seized $11,800 in his jacket, and soon afterward seized more than $262,000 from bank accounts he controlled. As part of his guilty plea, Amiryan forfeited those assets, which are worth nearly $275,000.

The case resulted from an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations Los Angeles’ El Camino Real Financial Crimes Task Force and the Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General.

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