City-educated IT executive arrested in US for Coronavirus relief fraud

He studied Computer Science in University of Mysore

Bengaluru: Mukund Mohan, who studied Computer Science in the University of Mysore and rose to be Director of Engineering at Microsoft in the US and who later turned into an entrepreneur and a start-up visionary, was arrested and charged by the US Attorney’s Office with fraudulently applying for more than 5.5 million dollars in Coronavirus relief funds. 

Mohan completed his Computer Science course in 1992 at Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering (SJCE). US prosecutors have alleged on Thursday that Mohan had applied for eight loans for six of his companies under the US Paycheck Protection Programme which aims at helping businesses amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

These loans are given to employers for retaining their workers and if used for the purpose, it could later be converted into grants with the employer no longer requiring to repay it. However, in Mohan’s case, it was found that he did not employ even a single person in those companies, and in fact, some of them did not even have a business. 

Mohan is currently employed as Chief Technology Officer at BuildDirect.com Technologies Inc., a website that connects people with home contractors. Previously, he had worked for Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp.

Mohan became a popular face in Bengaluru’s startup ecosystem when he moved here from the US in 2008, first to start a venture of his own and then to lead Microsoft’s startup accelerator programme. 

Prosecutors alleged that the federal loan documents contained a multitude of falsehoods. In one application, Mohan said one of his companies paid more than 2.3 million dollars for payroll in 2019 and that the company had dozens of employees. In reality, Mohan acquired ownership of the company in May, and it had no employees, according to the US Attorney in Washington.

The US Attorney’s complaint states that “Mohan submitted fake and altered documents, including fake federal tax filings and altered incorporation documents.” Mohan is alleged to have transferred the money he received to his personal brokerage account with financial services company Robinhood.

One of the companies he applied for a loan was called Mahenjo. The complaint alleges that Mohan made false and misleading statements about it, including that on Feb. 15, 2020, the company was in operation and had employees for whom it paid salaries and payroll taxes or paid independent contractors. He allegedly claimed that in 2019, Mahenjo’s payroll expenses were more than 2.3 million dollars and that Mahenjo’s average monthly pay expenses were 172,250 dollars. The complaint says Mahenjo was actually a shell company.