Former immigration detention guard in Miami charged with COVID-19 loan fraud and ID theft

A former contractor who worked as a detention guard for Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been charged with submitting falsified applications on behalf of six fake business owners for more than $100,000 in COVID-19 relief loans at the height of the pandemic.

Anthony Faustin, 28, of Homestead, was arrested by federal agents on Tuesday and later released on a personal surety bond.

Faustin, who is represented by the public defender’s office, pleaded not guilty on Thursday in Miami federal court to charges of conspiring to commit both wire and bank fraud along with related offenses, including theft of Social Security numbers.

According to an indictment, Faustin submitted a series of loan applications for the half-dozen purported business owners in 2021 under the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program, which was passed by Congress to help keep businesses intact and the economy going during the pandemic. The program allocated about $800 billion in loans through banks that were entirely guaranteed by the Small Business Administration and, in almost all instances, forgiven as long as the money was used for payroll and other legitimate overhead costs.

But the indictment, filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Bernstein, accuses Faustin of falsifying critical information on the PPP loan applications to make the half-dozen business owners appear eligible for pandemic relief, including lying about prior years’ income. In turn, lenders disbursed more than $100,000 in PPP loans to the bogus business owners, who then withdrew the money from their bank accounts and gave Faustin his cut, the indictment says.

Faustin, who had worked as a contractor guarding detainees at ICE’s Krome Detention Center in West Miami-Dade, is the latest of more than 180 South Florida defendants charged with fraudulently obtaining PPP and related pandemic benefits since the viral outbreak in March 2020. South Florida, long known as the nation’s capital of fraud schemes, has incurred more than 140 PPP criminal cases over the past three years, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

This story was originally published July 12, 2023 at 3:56 PM.

Jay Weaver

Miami Herald

305-376-3446

Jay Weaver writes about federal crime at the crossroads of South Florida and Latin America. Since joining the Miami Herald in 1999, he’s covered the federal courts nonstop, from Elian Gonzalez’s custody battle to Alex Rodriguez’s steroid abuse. He was part of the Herald teams that won the 2001 and 2022 Pulitzer Prizes for breaking news on Elian’s seizure by federal agents and the collapse of a Surfside condo building killing 98 people. He and three Herald colleagues were 2019 Pulitzer Prize finalists for explanatory reporting on gold smuggling between South America and Miami.