The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was passed in 2020 to provide financial assistance to Americans who suffered the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Part of this act was a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) designed to provide forgivable loans to small businesses using capital for payroll expenses. Within a matter of days, abuses were alleged to occur. Loans were obtained to purchase luxury items by real and imaginary business owners. Prosecutors soon filed criminal complaints, and we collected 96 criminal cases between 2020 and 2022. We created a data set to analyze these abuses using insights from rational choice theory and provided an offender taxonomy.
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