PPP Fraudsters Keep Getting Caught Buying Mansions While Legitimate Borrowers Get Squeezed By Collections

Posted: February 20, 2026 - 11:00 AM ET | NEW

Another week, another batch of PPP fraudsters getting marched into federal courtrooms while legitimate small business owners get threatening letters from the Treasury Department. Three sentencings in the first three weeks of February 2026 paint a picture so absurd, so infuriating, that you almost have to laugh to keep from screaming.

Let's take a tour through the latest class of PPP predators, shall we?

Case #1: The Massachusetts Car Dealer Who Bought a $750,000 House With Your Tax Money

Bill Dessaps, a 49-year-old from Easton, Massachusetts, owned an Abington-based used car dealership. Sounds normal enough, right? Except Dessaps had a vision. Not for growing his business or saving his employees' livelihoods during a global pandemic. No. His vision was a $750,000 house.

Here's how this genius operated: Dessaps submitted a PPP loan application claiming his little used car lot had 40 employees with an average monthly payroll of $334,720. Let that marinate for a second. A used car dealership. Forty employees. Over $334,000 a month in payroll. That's more than $4 million a year in salaries at a place that sells pre-owned Hondas.

                Dessaps claimed 40 employees and $334,720 in monthly payroll at a used car dealership, then walked away with $836,800 in PPP funds. He used it to buy a $750,000 house through a straw buyer.
            

The government, in its infinite wisdom, approved the application and cut Dessaps a check for $836,800. What did he do with this money that was supposed to keep American workers employed during a once-in-a-century pandemic? He had a close relative purchase a $750,000 home as a straw buyer, then slapped a $510,000 mortgage on it and moved right in.

But wait, it gets better. Dessaps also submitted false mortgage documents that inflated the relative's income and assets, and arranged a sham $127,500 "gift" to cover the remaining costs. Then, apparently feeling like one massive fraud wasn't enough, he attempted to secure a Second Draw PPP loan in March 2021. Because why stop at one crime when you're on a roll?

In September 2025, Dessaps was convicted on two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, one count of money laundering, and one count of bank fraud. On February 19, 2026, U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley sentenced him to three years in prison followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered him to pay $836,800 in restitution. Five other individuals were charged in January 2024 for their involvement in the scheme.

Three years. For stealing $836,800 and committing four federal felonies. Your average marijuana possession charge in some states carries more time.

Case #2: The Shelby Township Family Operation That Stole $2.5 Million

Now let's head to Michigan, where Samer Kammo, a 46-year-old from Shelby Township in Macomb County, ran what can only be described as a family PPP fraud enterprise. Kammo, along with his wife Christina Anasi and co-conspirator Rita Shaba, submitted fraudulent PPP applications for multiple businesses, complete with fictitious payroll records, fake health insurance documents, fabricated bank statements, and forged tax records.

                Samer Kammo and his co-conspirators stole approximately $2.5 million in PPP funds by submitting fake payroll, health insurance, bank, and tax records for multiple businesses. They even used personal information from Kammo's own mother.
            

The applications misrepresented payroll information and falsely certified the funds would go toward actual business expenses. They didn't just bend the truth. They built an entirely fictional paper trail to back up their applications. And in one particularly charming detail, the conspirators misused the personal info of Kammo's own family members, including his mother, to facilitate the fraud. Nothing says "family values" like dragging your mom's identity into a multimillion-dollar federal crime.

On February 13, 2026, U.S. District Judge Jonathan J.C. Grey sentenced Kammo to 36 months in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud and bank fraud. He was also ordered to pay $2,493,348.50 in restitution.

His co-defendant Rita Shaba, 40, was previously sentenced to 27 months in prison in January 2026. Kammo's wife Christina Anasi is still awaiting sentencing.

Oh, and here's a fun detail that really ties this whole thing together: Kammo was previously sentenced to three years in federal prison for drug dealing at his parents' liquor store. So this wasn't exactly a first-time offender who made a panic decision during a pandemic. This was a career criminal who saw COVID relief money as his next score.

                FBI Special Agent in Charge Jennifer Runyan: "This defendant and his co-conspirators tried to cheat the system by exploiting a federal relief program meant to help Americans in need."
            

The Math That Should Make You Lose Your Mind

Let's do some quick arithmetic. Just between these two cases from the last week of sentencings:

• Bill Dessaps: $836,800 stolen

• Samer Kammo and crew: $2,500,000 stolen

• Combined total: $3,336,800 in PPP funds gone

• Combined prison time: Dessaps gets 3 years, Kammo gets 3 years, Shaba gets 27 months

                Over $3.3 million stolen across just two PPP fraud cases sentenced in a single week of February 2026. Combined prison sentences: less than 9 years total. Meanwhile, the SBA is sending legitimate $50,000 EIDL borrowers to Treasury collections.
            

Three years for stealing $836,800. Three years for stealing $2.5 million. The sentences are practically identical despite the fraud amounts being wildly different. The federal sentencing guidelines apparently have a "PPP fraud discount" where once you cross the half-million mark, the punishment just kind of flatlines.

Meanwhile, In The Real World Where Honest People Live

While these fraudsters are getting their three-year federal vacation packages (federal prison, by the way, not state), here's what's happening to the people who actually tried to use pandemic relief programs the right way:

• EIDL borrowers who took $50,000 or $100,000 to keep their doors open are getting referred to Treasury collections

• Small business owners who missed a single payment are having their tax refunds seized

• Legitimate borrowers are being told there's no forgiveness path for their EIDL loans

• The SBA's own customer service lines are unreachable, leaving borrowers in limbo

So the guy who fabricated 40 employees and bought a three-quarter-million-dollar house gets three years and a restitution order he'll probably never fully pay. The family that created an entire paper empire of fake businesses to steal $2.5 million gets three years. But the bakery owner who borrowed $60,000 to keep three real employees on payroll during a real pandemic? That person gets hounded by debt collectors until the end of time.

The Sentencing Industrial Complex

These cases aren't isolated. They're pouring out of federal courtrooms across the country every single week in 2026. The Department of Justice has been on a PPP prosecution tear, and the convictions keep stacking up. But the sentences? The sentences are a joke. Three years for stealing nearly a million dollars. Three years for a $2.5 million scheme. That's not justice. That's the cost of doing business.

Think about the return on investment from Kammo's perspective. He stole $2.5 million. Even if he pays back the full $2.49 million in restitution (which, let's be honest, rarely happens in full), he did three years for the attempt. There are people doing more time for bouncing checks.

And Dessaps? He bought a $750,000 house. He lived in it. He got caught, and now he does three years. When he gets out, the restitution payments will be a fraction of his income for years. The house is gone, sure. But the audacity of the scheme, the sheer brass of claiming 40 employees at a used car lot, that's a level of criminal creativity that deserves more than a 36-month timeout.

The System Is Working Exactly As Designed

Here's the uncomfortable truth that nobody in Washington wants to say out loud: the PPP program was designed to move fast and ask questions later. It did exactly that. It moved $800 billion out the door in record time, and now, six years later, we're still cleaning up the mess. The DOJ's prosecuting cases. The FBI's investigating. Sentences are being handed down.

But for every Dessaps who gets caught buying a house, for every Kammo who gets nailed running a family fraud ring, there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of fraudsters who got away clean. The SBA's own Inspector General estimated that over $200 billion in pandemic relief funds were potentially fraudulently obtained. We've recovered a fraction of that.

And while the feds slowly work through their prosecution backlog, legitimate borrowers are the ones paying the price. They're the ones on hold with the SBA for three hours. They're the ones watching their credit scores crater because of EIDL repayment demands. They're the ones wondering why the government moved heaven and earth to shovel money out the door but can't be bothered to help the people who used it honestly.

Three fraudsters sentenced in three weeks. Millions stolen. Houses bought. Fake documents forged. And the punishment? Three years here, 27 months there. A slap on the wrist wrapped in a press release.

Welcome to 2026. The grift never stops. The consequences barely register. And if you're a legitimate small business borrower? Good luck. You're on your own.