A federal grand jury returned an indictment this week accusing a 53-year-old Los Angeles woman of orchestrating an $18 million scheme to defraud two of the federal government's signature pandemic relief programs. Marisela Nuno is charged in connection with alleged fraud against the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, both created to keep small businesses afloat during the COVID-19 crisis.
The indictment was returned Tuesday in the Central District of California, according to Justice News. The Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program were both federal stimulus programs authorized under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, commonly known as the CARES Act.
The indictment alleges false loan applications and tax documentation, purportedly false information about businesses, and use of funds for private-property purchases, startup costs and payments to family members. It is also not yet known whether Nuno has entered a plea or retained an attorney.
A Years-Long Federal Crackdown on Pandemic Loan Fraud
Nuno's case lands amid a sustained, multi-year federal effort to claw back pandemic relief funds lost to fraud. Between March 2020 and September 2023, the Small Business Administration's Office of Inspector General reported 1,180 indictments, 936 arrests and 613 convictions tied to PPP or EIDL fraud, with 580 investigations still open as of that September, according to a report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
The scale of suspected fraud across the two programs is staggering. The SBA's inspector general estimated in 2023 that more than $200 billion in PPP and COVID-era EIDL funds may have been funneled to potentially fraudulent actors, per CBS News. A 2024 Department of Justice report, summarized by Morrison Foerster, said the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force had by then charged more than 3,500 defendants with federal crimes, recovered more than $1.4 billion in government funds, and filed more than 400 civil suits since May 2021.
Enforcement Has Accelerated Through 2026
Federal enforcement has only intensified this year. CBS News reported that a Justice Department initiative dubbed the Heartland fraud surge ran from June 12 through September 1, resulting in actions against more than 160 defendants in cases carrying roughly $245 million in intended losses. During that surge, prosecutors pressed felony charges against nearly 80 defendants in cases tied to about $100 million in intended losses connected to SBA COVID-era programs, the outlet reported.
Separately, the station reported that Vice President JD Vance announced plans to suspend roughly 870,000 people suspected of defrauding pandemic-era small-business programs from receiving future federal loans. The SBA said newly announced suspensions were tied to an estimated $39 billion in suspected fraud spanning 45 states and territories, and that combined with earlier enforcement actions, suspended borrowers were linked to roughly $49 billion in alleged fraud nationwide, per the same CBS report. The agency had also referred roughly $22 billion to the Treasury Department for collection.
Other Pandemic Fraud Cases Still Working Through Courts
Nuno's indictment follows a string of similar prosecutions nationwide. In New Jersey, a man who obtained more than $2.1 million in fraudulent COVID-19 relief funds was sentenced on October 28 to 78 months in prison and three years of supervised release, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, District of New Jersey. That case, like Nuno's, underscores how federal authorities are still working through a backlog of pandemic-era fraud allegations years after the programs closed.
What specific evidence prosecutors will present against Nuno, and how her case will proceed through the Central District of California, remains to be seen. For now, the indictment marks the opening step in what federal officials have signaled will remain a long-running campaign to identify and prosecute fraud tied to pandemic relief programs.
