- The US Small Business Administration relied heavily on Atlanta-based Kabbage, an online lending platform, to help distribute PPP loans to businesses struggling during Covid.
- Reliant on automated loan screening and underwriting, Kabbage processed 300,000 PPP loans, 2nd only to Bank of America.
- However, fraudsters created fake businesses such as non-existent farms (eg “Beefy King”) to apply for PPP loans.
- To avoid detection, criminals used stolen social security numbers to create seemingly-legitimate credit profiles.
- The SBA paid Kabbage 5% of each loan processed under $350K.
