A Georgia man was found guilty of stealing nearly $13 million from taxpayers by submitting fraudulent documents that, among other things, claimed celebrities like Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman worked for his sham African gold mine business.
Carl Delano Torjagbo, also sometimes called Karl Lucius Delano, spent his ill-gotten gains on a mansion, supercars, plastic surgery and even a yacht down payment, according to court records.
Torjagbo, 49, was convicted on Friday by a federal jury of bank fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.
Prosecutors said Torjagbo’s scheme began on February 13, 2021, when he submitted two individual tax returns to the IRS falsely claiming that his millions of dollars in personal losses should offset earnings he made through Kremkov Industries, his supposed gold mine in Ghana.
Each tax return had different social security numbers and dates of birth, but the US Treasury still cut Torjagbo a refund check for $3.3 million.
Prosecutors said that days later, he sent a loan application through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), an initiative created in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to provide immediate cash injections to struggling businesses.
The February 16 application said Kremkov Industries had nearly 500 US-based employees and had an average monthly payroll of nearly $4 million, according to court documents.
Prosecutors said the gold mine and the hundreds of employees that supposedly worked for it were fake.
Carl Delano Torjagbo, 49, was convicted last week of defrauding the COVID-era PPP loan program to enrich himself. In all, he stole nearly $13 million from taxpayers, prosecutors said
In documents Torjagbo sent to banks about his fake gold mine business he made up to get a $9 million PPP loan, he claimed that Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman worked for him, prosecutors said
One of his biggest purchases after he got his hands on loan money meant for struggling businesses was this $1.7 million mansion in Marietta, Georgia
This was demonstrated when investigators found that the payroll reports Torjagbo submitted contained the names of celebrities and fictional characters.
‘According to Torjagbo, 493 people were living in the United States but working a mine in Ghana,’ Theodore Hertzberg, a US Attorney with the Northern District of Georgia, told Fox 5 Atlanta.
‘And he identified, by name, a number of those employees to the banks. Individuals like Keanu Reeves, Gene Hackman, Oliver Twist, Jon Snow. This really was a notorious fraud,’ Hertzberg added.
Despite all of this, Torjagbo received a $9.6 million PPP loan on March 29, 2021, a little over a month after he applied for the program.
It didn’t take long for him to start spending the inordinate sum. By June 2021, he bought a $1.7 million mansion in Marietta.
The over 9,000-square-foot behemoth has eight bedrooms, seven-and-half-bathrooms and a luxurious pool area.
It also has a three-car garage that would later house the three luxury vehicles he purchased.
He spent $333,000 on a 2014 Lamborghini Aventador, $120,000 on a 2022 BMW M850xi and $90,000 on a 2021 Land Rover Range Rover Velar.
Pictured: The 2014 Lamborghini Aventador that Torjagbo bought for $333,000
Pictured: The 2022 BMW M850xi that Torjagbo bought for an additional $120,000
Torjagbo is pictured in Aspen, Colorado, in January 2022 while on a ski trip. This was roughly nine months after prosecutors said he stole taxpayer funds
He also put a $51,000 down payment on a 72-foot yacht and spent more than $15,000 on plastic surgery, with the goal of achieving ‘gladiator abs,’ court records show.
Approximately $1 million was spent to acquire land, trucks and trailers to start a new freight and logistics business called FlyingJack, according to court documents.
Torjagbo’s social media pages remain up. One post on Facebook shows him jet-setting to Aspen, Colorado, for a ski trip in January 2022, just months after he stole the money.
‘Torjagbo defrauded a federal loan program of which its intended use was to assist businesses in covering rent, utility payments, and other job saving needs during the COVID-19 pandemic,’ IRS Special Agent Demetrius Hardeman said in a statement.
‘Taxpayers’ money that should have gone to these businesses instead went to Torjagbo, who then used it to fund his lavish lifestyle,’ he added.
Torjagbo now faces a maximum of 170 years in prison, though the judge will almost certainly hand down a significantly shorter term based on the US Sentencing Guidelines.
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