Two men indicted for COVID unemployment and loan fraud

 

Date: Jan. 30, 2025

Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov

BOSTON — Two men were arrested for allegedly submitting fraudulent information in an effort to obtain loans through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program.

Dominik Manigo of Weymouth, and Nelson Roche Diaz of Brockton, were indicted by a federal grand jury on one count of wire fraud conspiracy, and on one count each of wire fraud. Manigo and Roche appeared in federal court in Boston on Monday.

According to the charging documents, in or about May 2020, Manigo and Roche allegedly submitted fraudulent claims for PUA on the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance portal. Further, Manigo and Roche allegedly submitted fraudulent letters claiming the pandemic had impacted their employment at a restaurant in Boston. Manigo and Roche each allegedly received over $43,000 in PUA and related funds.

The charges of wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy provide for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.

United States Attorney Leah B. Foley; Thomas Demeo, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), Boston Field Office; Jonathan Mellone, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General, Office of Investigations, Labor Racketeering and Fraud, Northeast Region; Michael J. Krol, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New England; Colonel Geoffrey D. Noble, Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police; and Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox made the announcement today. Valuable assistance was provided by the Weymouth Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Samuel R. Feldman of the Narcotics and Money Laundering Unit is prosecuting the case.

IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.