U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado indicts Denver hotel owner on COVID fraud

The owner and co-owner of several Colorado businesses including Nativ Denver and Nativ Hotel Group was indicted on four federal wire fraud charges for misusing pandemic relief funds. From August of 2020 to around May of 2022, business owner, Amin Suliaman, from Miami, Florida, requested COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loans from the Small Business Administration, according to the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado indictment. 

Suliaman acquired $450,000. As part of the scheme, he asked for loan funding from inoperable companies "at the time of application and for a company that Suliaman had told a bankruptcy court was closed."

In March 2020, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act to provide emergency funding to Americans impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Then in May 2021, the Attorney General created an enforcement task force using resources from the Department of Justice along with other government agencies to fight and prevent pandemic-related fraud. On top of that, a strike force was created last year, which uses prosecutor-led and data analyst-driven teams to target large-scale, multistate criminal organizations that stole pandemic funding from the government.

Suliaman appeared in a Miami courtroom on May 14. A court date in Colorado has not been yet set.