An Indian-origin businessman, Rahul Shah, from Chicago, was sentenced to six years in prison for his role in schemes to defraud banks and obtain pandemic relief funds, federal prosecutors said.Rahul Shah, 56, of Evanston, was also sentenced to two years of supervised release and ordered to pay $23,226,005 in restitution, according to the US Department of Justice.Prosecutors said he fraudulently obtained more than $55 million in commercial loans and lines of credit and submitted false applications to obtain COVID-19 relief money guaranteed by the US Small Business Administration through the Paycheck Protection Program.Shah, who operated several information-technology companies in the Chicago area, was convicted by a jury in July 2025 on 16 federal counts, including seven counts of bank fraud, five counts of making false statements to a financial institution, two counts of money laundering and two counts of aggravated identity theft.According to court records and evidence presented at trial, Shah obtained loans and lines of credit from federally insured financial institutions for which he was not eligible by submitting falsified bank statements that inflated deposits, balance sheets that overstated revenues and fabricated audited financial statements bearing forged signatures.
Prosecutors said he later defaulted on at least one loan and one line of credit and carried out monetary transactions using proceeds from the fraud.In a separate scheme tied to pandemic relief programmes, Shah applied to a federally insured bank for a $441,138 loan guaranteed by the SBA that significantly overstated the payroll expenses of a company he controlled.Prosecutors said he supported the application with fraudulent Internal Revenue Service documents that falsely claimed payments to individuals who had not received them and used stolen identities by listing names and taxpayer identification numbers of people who had no connection to the business.Shah also submitted what purported to be IRS Forms 941 reflecting the company’s quarterly payroll expenses for 2019. A comparison with the company’s actual IRS and state tax filings showed that the business reported far lower payroll expenses to tax authorities, prosecutors said.“The defendant orchestrated a massive scheme to fraudulently obtain over $55 million in commercial loans and lines of credit from federally insured financial institutions and exploit the Paycheck Protection Program,” Assistant Attorney General A Tysen Duva of the Criminal Division said.“The defendant’s lies and deceit put our financial system at risk and wasted limited resources,” he added.US Attorney Andrew S Boutros for the Northern District of Illinois said the length and scope of the fraud reflected what he described as Shah’s “determination and greed,” and said the case showed the impact of coordinated work by prosecutors and investigators.The case was investigated by the FBI and the Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General and prosecuted by the Justice Department’s Criminal Division Fraud Section along with the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois.
