Federal prosecutors filed wire fraud charges Monday against a Severna Park man they say obtained a small business loan under false pretenses, paying a 30% kickback to an unnamed person who helped file the loan application and a fraudulent tax form.
Charges filed in U.S. District Court against Ayaz Qureshi, who is listed as the agent for Yazee Inc., accuse him of obtaining over $250,000 in Paycheck Protection Program loan funds for the company in March 2021 and paying $75,000 to a person only identified as “A.S.” in exchange for submitting the PPP loan application.
Federal prosecutors said “A.S.” is a Baltimore resident who ran a purported financial services business.
The loan application claimed the company had over $100,000 in monthly payroll expenses to a total of 16 employees in 2019, prosecutors said, when in reality the company did not pay any wages to any employees.
In a court filing, prosecutors said the unnamed person fabricated a false unemployment tax form, which was never filed with the Internal Revenue Service, claiming that Yazee Inc. paid over $1.2 million in wages to employees in 2019, while the company never paid unemployment tax or withhold any federal income tax for an employee. The bogus form was intended to circumvent a bank’s requirement that borrowers submit documentation, prosecutors said.
Qureshi, 53, says he was scammed by the accountant, whom he only knew as “Adam.” The accountant misled him about the loan, said Qureshi, a native of…
