An Indian-origin businessman, Rahul Shah, from Chicago, was sentenced to 6 years in jail for his position in schemes to defraud banks and acquire pandemic aid funds, federal prosecutors mentioned.Rahul Shah, 56, of Evanston, was additionally sentenced to 2 years of supervised launch and ordered to pay $23,226,005 in restitution, based on the US Division of Justice.Prosecutors mentioned he fraudulently obtained greater than $55 million in business loans and features of credit score and submitted false purposes to acquire COVID-19 aid cash assured by the US Small Enterprise Administration via the Paycheck Safety Program.Shah, who operated a number of information-technology corporations within the Chicago space, was convicted by a jury in July 2025 on 16 federal counts, together with seven counts of financial institution fraud, 5 counts of creating false statements to a monetary establishment, two counts of cash laundering and two counts of aggravated id theft.In line with courtroom data and proof introduced at trial, Shah obtained loans and features of credit score from federally insured monetary establishments for which he was not eligible by submitting falsified financial institution statements that inflated deposits, stability sheets that overstated revenues and fabricated audited monetary statements bearing cast signatures.Prosecutors mentioned he later defaulted on no less than one mortgage and one line of credit score and carried out financial transactions utilizing proceeds from the fraud.In a separate scheme tied to pandemic aid programmes, Shah utilized to a federally insured financial institution for a $441,138 mortgage assured by the SBA that considerably overstated the payroll bills of an organization he managed.Prosecutors mentioned he supported the applying with fraudulent Inside Income Service paperwork that falsely claimed funds to people who had not obtained them and used stolen identities by itemizing names and taxpayer identification numbers of people that had no connection to the enterprise.Shah additionally submitted what presupposed to be IRS Kinds 941 reflecting the corporate’s quarterly payroll bills for 2019. A comparability with the corporate’s precise IRS and state tax filings confirmed that the enterprise reported far decrease payroll bills to tax authorities, prosecutors mentioned.“The defendant orchestrated an enormous scheme to fraudulently acquire over $55 million in business loans and features of credit score from federally insured monetary establishments and exploit the Paycheck Safety Program,” Assistant Lawyer Common A Tysen Duva of the Felony Division mentioned.“The defendant’s lies and deceit put our monetary system in danger and wasted restricted sources,” he added.US Lawyer Andrew S Boutros for the Northern District of Illinois mentioned the size and scope of the fraud mirrored what he described as Shah’s “dedication and greed,” and mentioned the case confirmed the affect of coordinated work by prosecutors and investigators.The case was investigated by the FBI and the Small Enterprise Administration Workplace of Inspector Common and prosecuted by the Justice Division’s Felony Division Fraud Part together with the US Lawyer’s Workplace for the Northern District of Illinois.
