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CHENG used the identity of other individuals to submit online applications to the SBA and at least five financial institutions for a total of over $7 million in government-guaranteed loans through the SBA’s PPP and EIDL Program for several companies controlled by CHENG, namely Alchemy Finance, Inc., Alchemy Guarantor LLC d/b/a “Celer Offer,” Celeri Network, Inc., Celeri Treasury LLC, and Wynston York LLC (collectively, the “Cheng Companies”).  In connection with these loan applications, CHENG represented, among other things, that other individuals were the sole owners of the Cheng Companies and that the Cheng Companies together had over 200 employees and paid a total of approximately $1.5 million in wages to those employees on a monthly basis.  In fact, however, the Cheng Companies appear to have had a total of no more than 14 employees.

In order to support the false representations in the loan applications about the number of employees at and the wages paid by the Cheng Companies, CHENG submitted fraudulent and doctored tax records that were never actually filed with the IRS and payroll records containing the forged electronic signature of a payroll company employee.  CHENG also submitted a payroll summary for one of his companies that listed the names of more than 90 purported employees, several of whom are current or former athletes, artists, actors, or public figures.  For example, the list of purported employee names included a co-anchor on “Good Morning America,” a former National Football League player, and a prominent former Penn State football coach who is now deceased.

From Fintech CEO Pleads Guilty To Multiple Fraud Schemes, Including $7 Million COVID-19 Pandemic Loan Fraud And Securities Fraud | USAO-SDNY | Department of Justice.

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Internet of Things (IoT): Increases in connectivity, device penetration, and embedded payments make the payments card industry susceptible to disruption at large.

From Technology-led shifts and opportunities in card-based payments | McKinsey & Company.

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A wave of start-ups are attempting to revive regional banking in the UK, decades after most of the country’s original local lenders were swallowed up by consolidation.

Last month Birmingham Bank became the first to get a full banking licence after acquiring one of the UK’s smallest existing banks from the British Independent Retailers Association.

From UK start-ups set their sights on regional banking revival | Financial Times.

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“I think cash will disappear,” she said on the FT’s Money Clinic podcast, speculating that this could happen as soon as 2030, but was more likely to have occurred “by 2033 or 2034”.

From Anne Boden: ‘Cash will disappear’ | Financial Times.

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According to DRI, Facebook not only failed to implement privacy by design and by default to protect user data, but the company also failed to notify those affected by the leak or the Data Protection Commission. Each of these is a duty under the GDPR laws, which came into effect in May 2018.

From Thousands urged to sue Facebook in mass action over leaked data.

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Her CV submitted to the Bar Standard Board’s (BSB) qualification committee also boasted that she and won cases on behalf of eight other clients in unfair dismissal cases.

Ahmed was also found to have produced forged references from a law firm claiming that she had gained legal experience there, but it was found that she was actually working as a receptionist.

She also lied about a legal qualification she claimed she had from Cardiff University and a diploma in forensic medicine.

From Scorned barrister, 33, who was jailed for making false rape was struck off after lying about exams | Daily Mail Online.

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That final function is often overlooked, but it is strategically important to the economy. Here is an example, to illustrate the point. As my good friend Ron Shevlin pointed out here in Forbes recently, almost all Americans with cryptocurrencies said that they would or might use their bank to buy and sell them. I strongly suspect that there are a substantial fraction of Americans who do not currently hold cryptocurrencies who would if the services was offered by their bank. This is an example of what is know as the “incentive” function of banking: that is, the existence of regulated financial institutions in a market means that transactions will take place. Now, this is not to say that speculating on DogeCoin is a good thing to do or not (I have genuinely no idea whether to buy it or not, and any references to specific cryptocurrencies in this article are for entertainment purposes only) but it is to say that transactions are enabled by banks and, as Ron points out, banks need information to set the dial on those incentive functions.

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About 80 people at a clinic in Mexico received a fake vaccine going for about $1,000 a dose, though they don’t appear to have been physically harmed.

From Pfizer Identifies Fake Covid-19 Shots Abroad as Criminals Exploit Vaccine Demand – WSJ.

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The Bank of England and HM Treasury have created a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Taskforce to coordinate the exploration of a potential UK CBDC.

From Central bank digital currencies | Bank of England:

The taskforce will be made up from people from the Bank of England and Her Majesty’s Treasury only, so unfortunately it will not include me, but it will have two Forums established alongside it: an “engagement forum” and a “technology forum”. I hope that I can save them some time 

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Under the new model, an operator of a payment system can hold funds in the omnibus account to fund their participants’ balances with central bank money. This will allow them to offer innovative payment services, while having the security of central bank money settlement. They can support a wide range of high-value payments, which could range from a commercial bank buying government bonds to a small business paying their suppliers.

From Bank of England publishes policy for omnibus accounts in RTGS | Bank of England.

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