WASHINGTON, DC - It has long been estimated that fraud tied to COVID-19 relief programs could be somewhere around $300 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office.
As an example, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is searching for a Florida woman in connection with a scheme to misappropriate $34 million in COVID-19 relief funds, Fox35 in Orlando reports.
Elaine Angene Escoe, 40, is wanted in connection with her alleged involvement in defrauding the government out of the money as part of several fraudulent COVID-era relief fund applications.
Escoe and co-conspirators submitted over 90 fraudulent applications for funds from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL), Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF), and Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) between May 2020 and November 2021, the FBI alleged.
The agency contends that the scheme centered around false information regarding employee counts, payroll expenses, and business revenues.
According to a wanted poster published by the FBI, it is alleged that the applications resulted in the wrongful disbursement of approximately $29.1 million in PPP funds, $1.2 million in RRF funds, and $3.8 million in SVOG funds.
After the funds were disbursed, the agency says, Escoe and co-conspirators “allegedly directed payments to each other and to businesses they controlled, withdrew large sums in cash, and used blank, signed checks to conceal the origin and nature of the proceeds.”
The agency said an arrest warrant was issued for Escoe in May 2025 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida in West Palm Beach, charging her with Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud, Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering, Wire Fraud, Concealment Money Laundering, and Transactional Money Laundering.
Escoe was notified of a scheduled court appearance for June 5, 2025, however failed to appear. She was last seen on June 3, 2025, in Palm Beach County, Florida. She is considered a flight risk.
Fox35 reported she is a native of Jamaica and has aliases of “Annie” and “Annie Palmer,” officials told the outlet.
She is described as 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighing 150 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. She also has tattoos on her left wrist, abdomen, back, and right shoulder.
Anyone with information is asked to call the FBI’s toll-free tipline at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324).
Comments
2025-09-10T22:17-0400 | Comment by: Dean
Only the U.S.government is stupid enough to fall for this crap.She is by far not the only one that did this.I see Mexican and Spanish run dinners and five an dimes popping up all over my small town all coinciding with these monies.No one can tell me all these people came into enough money to start these operations by hard work and saving.I am not that stupid.I mean in my town of 18,000 people we have had 9 of these Spanish operated places in the last year.Our government needs to do their homework on this.Hell put a reward out for information on the recovery of the billions stolen from we taxpayers.The government should have known better.Those applications should have been scrutinized to determine who was legitimate and who was just plain stealing from us.