{"id":24412,"date":"2025-11-24T17:04:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T17:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=24412"},"modified":"2025-11-24T17:04:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T17:04:14","slug":"doj-charges-usaid-staffer-in-wide-ranging-corruption-probe-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=24412","title":{"rendered":"DOJ Charges USAID Staffer In Wide-Ranging Corruption Probe"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"A USAID employee responsible for overseeing agency contracts created a fictitious company to illegally obtain coronavirus relief funds for personal gain, federal prosecutors announced Friday.<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cYusuf Akoll worked as a Senior Procurement Contract Specialist at the U.S. Agency for International Development,\u201d according to a previously unreported\u00a0court document. \u201cFrom at least in or around March 2021, and continuing through at least in or around August 2021, Akoll [made] materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements\u2026that resulted in Akoll receiving two [Paycheck Protection Program] loans totaling approximately $16,666 that he was not entitled to receive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prosecutors allege that in November 2020, Akoll registered a company in Virginia named Naagode Consulting LLC and then applied for a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan under the federal COVID-19 relief program. He claimed to be employed by Naagode and stated the funds were needed to avoid layoffs.<\/p>\n

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However, eligibility for the program required businesses to be operational as of February 2020, prompting Akoll to falsely list the company\u2019s start date as January 2020. To justify the loan, he also claimed the company earned $40,000 in 2019, despite it having no income at all, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

Akoll was charged with making false statements in Washington, D.C., federal court through an \u201cinformation,\u201d a filing that typically indicates a plea agreement is in the works, the Daily Wire\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n

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The fact that the loan was approved underscores how recklessly the government distributed vast sums of money during the coronavirus pandemic. Akoll\u2019s claim that the company earned $40,000 in 2019 directly contradicted his own assertion that it wasn\u2019t founded until January 2020.<\/p>\n

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Small Business Administration officials failed to verify the company\u2019s formation date\u2014easily accessible through state corporation records\u2014or cross-check the claimed income against federal tax filings, revealing a lack of basic due diligence. It also highlights the kind of oversight gaps the Department of Government Efficiency has focused on addressing as a core part of its mission.<\/p>\n

USAID was shut down, and its remaining functions were absorbed into the State Department amid concerns from Republicans and the Department of Government Efficiency over widespread financial mismanagement. According to\u00a0records, Akoll had oversight of hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding directed to foreign countries, money that was often difficult to track and monitor effectively.<\/p>\n

Coronavirus relief payments were distributed under a \u201cpay and chase\u201d model, in which the government prioritized rapid disbursement with the expectation that fraudulent claims would be pursued later. However, the Biden administration largely abandoned efforts to recover those funds.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the Biden administration announced it would not attempt to collect loans under $100,000 that were technically required to be repaid, citing \u201cequity\u201d concerns. While most loans were designed to be forgiven, recipients who failed to meet forgiveness criteria were still obligated to repay them.<\/p>\n

This decision drew criticism from the Small Business Administration\u2019s inspector general, who said the policy \u201cis not in compliance with applicable criteria.\u201d It warned that failing to pursue known fraudsters sends a message that abuse of government programs will go unpunished.<\/p>\n

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In March 2025, Congress came close to allowing the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery (SIGPR)\u2014the watchdog established to investigate fraud in the pandemic relief effort\u2014to expire, a move that would have effectively ended scrutiny of one of the largest and most disorderly government spending sprees in history.<\/p>\n

Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) criticized the office, arguing it had recovered just three dollars for every dollar spent on staffing, less than what he believed was acceptable. However, watchdog group CourtWatch, which pushed for the office\u2019s continuation, countered that SIGPR operated with only a few dozen employees and shutting it down would further hamper efforts to recover misused funds.<\/p>\n

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), the head of the Senate DOGE Caucus, fought to keep the inspector general, saying, \u201cI will not allow fraudsters to get away with stealing hundreds of billions of dollars from taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The head of Lexis Nexis Risk Solutions testified to Congress that criminals stole\u00a0$1 trillion\u00a0in COVID money, most of which went overseas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A USAID employee responsible for overseeing agency contracts created a fictitious company to illegally obtain coronavirus relief funds for personal gain, federal prosecutors announced Friday. Advertisement \u201cYusuf Akoll worked as … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24413,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24412\/revisions\/24413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}