COVID crook who bought sports cars with loan fraud sentenced

A California man who spent COVID-19 relief loans on a Ferrari, a Bentley and a Lamborghini was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison Friday.

Mustafa Qadiri, 42, of Irvine, was also ordered to pay $2.8 in restitution and a $20,000 fine, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Qadiri had fraudulently obtained $5 million in pandemic relief loans, and used the money to live large — buying the pricey cars and taking lavish vacations, prosecutors said.

He had filed applications for the federal Paycheck Protection Program in May and June of 2020 on behalf of four separate Newport Beach companies that were actually defunct at the time, according to officials.

Qadiri created fake tax returns and falsified bank balances in exchange for the funds, which Congress had allocated to provide emergency aid to small businesses that were being paralyzed by the pandemic.

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He plead guilty in July of 2021 to bank fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering, after authorities confiscated the sports cars in addition to $2 million in cash from his bank accounts.

Multiple friends who wrote character references for the COVID-19 crook blamed the staggering fraud on his alcohol addiction, and Qadiri had reportedly requested that prison officials place him in a residential drug abuse program.

The sentence came a week after federal officials estimated that at least $191 billion in pandemic unemployment claims were stolen or improperly distributed.