POGO: A fake small business received a loan from a CARES Act program.

 

If you saw Nick’s message yesterday, you’ll remember that thanks to a whistleblower, POGO found that a fake small business was able to obtain a loan through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which was established to help small businesses struggling to survive the economic fallout of COVID-19. The catch is that the company is very real—it just isn’t very small. Atlantic Diving Supply, which sounds like a small beach shop in a sleepy seaside town, is actually among the government’s 24 largest contractors. It provides clothing, weapons, and even drones. And in 2019, the company was awarded $3,200,000,000 in government contracts. Does that sound like a struggling small business to you? Read our investigation to find out how a not-so-small business received between $2 million and $5 million in COVID-19 aid for small businesses. Not only did Atlantic Diving Supply seem to make an end-run around the rules for COVID-19 small business loans, POGO found that it is just one of at least 27 companies that received a PPP loan and had an estimated annual revenue last year of over $1 billion. Greater still is the number of businesses (2,068) who had sales over $100 million in 2019. This probably seems like a lot of numbers, but it gives you a small window into how stories of corruption and carelessness get lost in big data. That’s why POGO is still working every day to dig into the data—no matter how complex. And while some of these businesses might not actually be violating the law, the point is that the reporting from the SBA is so incomplete that investigators can’t be certain one way or the other. This is especially true because historically, the SBA has given loans to companies that were ineligible for loans because real companies benefitting were concealed. Go to POGO’s investigation to learn how the SBA has struggled to identify red flags. Thank you for joining POGO in our journey to find the truth, even behind closed doors. Liz Hempowicz Director of Public Policy Project On Government Oversight Contribute

Project On Government Oversight 1100 G Street NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20005 United States