A Miami influencer defrauded the United States Government for USD 1.5 million with aid for COVID

Private plane flights, luxury hotels, rides in Rolls Royce and top-brand handbags. Danielle Miller’s Instagram profile had it all except one detail: where did she get the money for these luxuries?

The 32-year-old woman defines herself as a “fraud artist”. And the reality is that the title has been won. Miller testified in court before the Massachusetts district attorney that he had obtained more than $1.5 million in funds from the United States federal government thanks to the fact that he had stolen the identities of at least 10 people.

During a hearing in which he participated via video call from his prison cell, Miller pleaded guilty to fraudulent banking transactions and aggravated identity theft. With the identities he stole, and the creation of non-existent business names, Miller received interest-free loans from the federal government from the economic disaster fund (provided for crisis cases), as well as unemployment assistance benefits that were increased during the pandemic, between July 2020 and May 2021.

Miller had manufactured driver’s licenses with all the information of the people whose identity he stole whose photograph he put on. In at least one case, he managed to get someone else’s data into the Boston auto registry, where he stole more data with which he was able to open a bank account.

The prosecution even found that Miller used a false identity to take a private flight from Miami to California, and then settle in a luxury hotel for a vacation. All these luxuries were meticulously documented on her social media profiles, especially Instagram where she has 35,000 followers.

In pleading guilty to five criminal charges, Miller agreed that he would repay $1.3 million and spend six years in prison. His formal sentence will be on June 27, but the agreement with the prosecution is already known. Miller, in turn, is serving a sentence for fraud in the state of Florida.

Unfortunately Miller’s is not an isolated case. Although there are no final figures on how much fraud was committed with the COVID-19 relief funds, according to calculations made by the federal government itself, it is estimated that there were fraudulent payments amounting to 60 billion dollars.

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