Criminal Defense Lawyers

FBI Left a Business Card at My Door About My PPP Loan

Last Updated on: 14th December 2025, 02:39 am

You come home from work and there it is. A business card tucked into your door frame. Federal Bureau of Investigation. A handwritten note on the back asking you to call. Your stomach drops. Your mind races through every PPP loan document you signed back in 2020. Every payroll number. Every certification. And now you’re wondering what to do next.

Here’s what nobody tells you about that business card: it doesn’t mean the investigation is starting. It means the investigation is almost over. By the time an FBI agent takes the time to drive to your house and leave a card, they’ve already spent months building a case. They’ve already pulled your bank records. They’ve already interviewed your employees. They’ve already talked to your accountant. That business card isn’t an invitation to explain yourself. It’s the final piece of evidence they need – your own words, on the record, before you have time to think or hire a lawyer.

The most dangerous thing you can do right now is call that number back without an attorney. I know that sounds counterintuitive. You want to cooperate. You want to clear your name. You want to explain that it was all a misunderstanding, that your bookkeeper made an error, that you didn’t know the rules. But that phone call is exactly what they’re counting on. And statistically, it will destroy you.

That Business Card Means the Investigation Is Almost Over – Not Starting

Most people see an FBI business card and think this is the beginning. They think agents are just now starting to look into things. They beleive theres still time to get ahead of the situation and explain what happened. Thats not how federal investigations work. Not even close.

Federal PPP fraud investigations run for eighteen to twenty-four months before agents ever make contact with you. Read that again. By the time you find that card in your door, the FBI has been building your case for over a year. Maybe two years. Theyve subpoenaed your bank records directly from the bank – and banks dont notify customers when federal subpoenas come in. Theyve pulled your tax returns. Theyve compared your PPP loan application to your actual payroll records. Theyve already found the discrepancies.

Heres the thing most people dont understand. The investigation phase is covert. You go about your daily life completly unaware that federal agents are tracking every dollar of PPP funds, interviewing your former employees, and building a prosecution file. That business card represents the moment they transition from covert investigation to overt contact. Its not the start of anything. Its closer to the end.

Think about what that means for your situation. If you call back and try to explain away inconsistancies in your PPP application, your talking to people who already have documents proving what actualy happened. They already know were the money went. They already know if your employee count was inflated. Every explanation you offer gets compared against months of evidence they’ve already collected. And if your explanation doesnt match there records – even if you genuinly misremember – thats a whole new crime.

What the FBI Already Knows Before You Call Back

Lets talk about what the FBI has done before leaving that card. This isnt speculation. This is how federal PPP fraud investigations actualy work.

First, they subpoenaed your bank. Banks recieve federal subpoenas directly, and there under no obligation to tell you. So while you were going about your normal life, agents were pulling your complete bank records. Every deposit. Every withdrawal. Every transfer. They know exactly were every dollar of PPP money went. If you used funds for payroll like you were supposed to, they know. If you bought a car or made mortgage payments or transferred money to personal accounts, they know that to.

Second, they pulled your tax records. The IRS Criminal Investigation is one of four agencies investigating PPP fraud, and they share information freely with the FBI. Your tax returns from 2019, 2020, and 2021 are sitting in an investigators file right now. Theyve compared the employee count on your PPP application to what you reported to the IRS. Theyve compared the payroll figures. If theres a discrepancy – any discrepancy – theyve flagged it.

Third, and this is the part that really matters, they interviewed your people. Your former employees. Your bookkeeper. Your accountant. Possibly your business partners. These witnesses talked to federal agents without you knowing anything about it. And heres the uncomfortable truth: they told the FBI everything. Not becuase there bad people, but becuase there terrified of being charged themselves. When an FBI agent shows up asking questions about your PPP loan, most people cooperate fully. They answer every question. They provide every document. They want to make absolutly clear that they werent involved in any fraud.

So when you call that number back, your not providing new information. The FBI already has the information. There calling you becuase they want to hear your version of events and compare it to what they already know. Every inconsistancy between your story and the evidence becomes prosecutable. Either as the underlying fraud, or as a false statement under 18 USC 1001.

Fourth, theyve already run the numbers. Federal agents have sophisticated data analytics tools that flag suspicious PPP applications automaticaly. They cross-reference your application against state unemployment databases. They check if the employees you claimed were actualy recieving unemployment benefits at the same time you said you were paying them. They compare your stated gross income to your tax filings. They look for IP addresses from foreign countries on your application. They flag applications from the same physical address. By the time you see that business card, every red flag in your file has been identified, analyzed, and documented.

The SBA Office of Inspector General estimates that seventeen percent of all PPP loans – thats roughly one in six – involved some form of fraud. Thats billions of dollars. And theyve got ten years to prosecute every single case. The agents who left that card at your door have access to everything. Bank records, tax records, witness statements, data analytics. The only thing they dont have is your statement. Thats why there calling.

The False Statement Trap – How Innocent People Get 5 Extra Years

Heres were things get really dangerous. You can be completly innocent of PPP fraud and still go to prison. Not for fraud. For lying to federal agents.

Under 18 USC 1001, making a false statement to a federal agent is a seperate crime carrying up to five years in prison. It dosent matter if the underlying investigation leads to charges. It dosent matter if you genuinly beleived what you were saying. If you make a statement that turns out to be false – even if you just misremembered something – you can be charged and convicted.

Look at Martha Stewart. Most people think she went to prison for insider trading. She didnt. The government never proved insider trading. Martha Stewart went to prison for lying to investigators about allegations she was ultimatly aquitted of. She served five months for false statements. The thing she was actualy investigated for? She beat those charges. But the lies she told trying to defend herself became there own convictions.

This is exactly whats waiting for you in that phone call. FBI agents are trained interrogators. There trained to make you feel comfortable. There trained to ask questions conversationally, like there just trying to understand what happened. But heres what there actualy doing: there looking for inconsistancies. There looking for statements that contradict the evidence they already have. There building a false statement case in real time.

And heres the kicker. They already know the answers to every question they ask. The interview isnt about gathering information – theyve already gathered it. The interview is about getting you on record saying something that contradicts there evidence. When you say “I didnt know the employee count was wrong” and they have emails showing you approved the payroll numbers, thats 18 USC 1001. When you say “All the PPP money went to payroll” and they have bank records showing a $50,000 transfer to your personal account, thats 18 USC 1001.

Think about it. You can walk into that interview innocent of PPP fraud and walk out having commited a federal crime. Not the crime they were investigating. A whole new crime. One you commited during the interview itself.

Let me give you a real example of how this works. Carl Torjagbo from Marietta, Georgia got almost $9.6 million in PPP loans by listing celebrities and fictional characters as employees. Thats obviously fraud. But plenty of people get charged who did much less. People who made honest mistakes on applications. People who estimated employee counts becuase they didnt have exact numbers. People who used some PPP money for rent when they thought that was allowed. The fraud might be ambiguous. But when they talk to agents and misremember details or contradict the evidence, the false statement charge is crystal clear. Prosecutors love 18 USC 1001 becuase its easy to prove. You said X. The evidence shows Y. Conviction.

Why 90% of People Who Call Back Get Indicted

The statistics are brutal. In Florida PPP fraud cases from 2023 to 2025, ninety percent of defendants who spoke to FBI agents without an attorney present were indicted. Ninety percent. Thats not a typo. Nine out of ten people who thought they could explain there way out of this ended up facing federal charges.

Why is the number so high? Becuase of everything Ive explained above. The agents already have the evidence. There not calling to investigate. There calling to close the case. And your statements – whatever you say, however you say it – become the final piece.

Heres how the cascade works:

• You get the business card
• You panic
• You decide to call back becuase you want to seem cooperative and innocent people have nothing to hide, right?
• The agent is friendly – they say they just want to understand what happened with your PPP loan
• You start explaining
• You mention that your accountant handled most of the paperwork
• You say the employee numbers might of been estimated
• You explain that you used most of the money for payroll but maybe some went to rent or utilities

Every single one of those statements is now recorded. Every single one will be compared against the documents they already have. If your accountant already told them you personally approved the inflated employee count, your statement just contradicted a witness. If there bank records show the money went to a boat and not rent, your statement just contradicted the evidence. If the “estimates” on your application were wildly different from reality, you just admitted you knew the numbers werent accurate.

And now your not just facing PPP fraud charges. Your facing conspiracy, wire fraud, bank fraud, and false statements. Your looking at thirty years maximum instead of twenty. Becuase you called back.

Heres the uncomfortable truth nobody wants to hear: cooperation with federal agents almost never helps in PPP fraud cases. The 98.5 percent conviction rate in prosecuted COVID fraud cases tells you everything you need to know. By the time theyve decided to contact you, theyve already decided to charge you. Your statements dont change that calculus. They just give prosecutors more ammunition.

What You Should Do Instead

So what do you do when you find that FBI business card in your door? The answer is simple, even though it feels wrong: you dont call back. Not yet.

First, you hire a federal criminal defense attorney. Today. Not tomorrow. Not after you “think about it” for a few days. Today. The attorney becomes your shield. All future communication goes through them. If the FBI wants to talk to you, your attorney handles that conversation. If theres an opportunity to cooperate in a way that actualy helps your case – and sometimes there is – your attorney negotiates that arrangement with protections in place.

Second, you gather your records. Every PPP loan document. Every bank statement. Every payroll record. Every email about the loan. You give these to your attorney so they can understand your situation and develop a defense strategy. This is completly different from handing them to the FBI. Your attorney uses them to protect you. The FBI uses them to prosecute you.

Third, you exercise your rights. Under the Fifth Amendment, you have an absolute right to remain silent. Refusing to speak with FBI agents cannot be used against you at trial. This is not obstruction. This is not consciousness of guilt. This is a constitutional protection that exists specificaly becuase the founders understood how dangerous it is to let the goverment force you to be a witness against yourself.

Heres the decision matrix your actualy facing:

• Option one: call back without an attorney, try to explain yourself, and join the ninety percent who get indicted
• Option two: hire an attorney immediatly, let them handle all communication, and give yourself a fighting chance

Theres no third option were you talk your way out of this. That option dosent exist in federal investigations.

I know staying silent feels like admitting guilt. I know it feels like innocent people should have nothing to hide. But feelings dont win federal cases. Evidence wins federal cases. And right now, the only thing you can do is stop giving them more evidence.

What Happens After You Hire an Attorney

Lets talk about what actualy happens when you do this the right way. You hire a federal criminal defense attorney. The attorney contacts the FBI agent who left the card. They inform the agent that you are represented by counsel and that all communication must go through them. This is completly legal. This is your constitutional right. And it changes everything about how the investigation proceeds.

Your attorney will review all the documents you can gather. Theyll identify what the goverment likely has and what there theory of prosecution might be. Theyll figure out if theres a defense – maybe the application errors were genuine mistakes, maybe you relied on bad advice from an accountant, maybe the funds were actualy used properly and theres a documentation issue. Most importantly, theyll figure out your exposure. How bad is this actualy?

In some cases, your attorney might negotiate a proffer agreement. This is were you agree to meet with prosecutors and tell them what you know, in exchange for certain protections. But heres the critical difference: your attorney negotiates the terms first. There are rules about what can and cant be used against you. There are protections in place. This is completly different from calling back that FBI agent on your own and hoping for the best.

Sometimes cooperation makes sense. If you have information about other people who commited fraud – maybe someone recruited you into a scheme, maybe your accountant was running the same fraud for multiple clients – prosecutors might be interested in that information. A good attorney can use that as leverage. But this kind of cooperation only works when its negotiated properly. When you call the FBI back on your own, your giving away information for free. When your attorney handles it, every piece of information has value.

The point is this: theres a right way and a wrong way to respond to that business card. The wrong way destroys your case. The right way gives you options.

The Clock Is Ticking – But Not How You Think

One final thing you need to understand. In August 2022, Congress extended the statute of limitations for PPP fraud to ten years. That means if you applied for a PPP loan in April 2020, the goverment has until April 2030 to charge you. There in no rush. There taking there time. There building the strongest possible cases and prosecuting them methodicaly.

The IRS Criminal Investigation division has a 98.5 percent conviction rate in COVID fraud prosecutions. Ninety-eight point five percent. That tells you exactly what your dealing with. They dont bring cases they might lose. They bring cases there certain to win. By the time that business card shows up in your door, someone has already decided your case is winnable. Your job now is to not make it easier for them.

The average sentence in PPP fraud cases is thirty-four months in federal prison. Thats almost three years. Bank fraud charges carry up to thirty years. Wire fraud carries twenty. False statements add another five. The stakes couldnt be higher.

That FBI business card in your door feels like a question. Like there asking if you want to talk. But its not a question. Its a trap. The investigation already happened. The evidence already exists. The only thing missing is your own words confirming what they already know – or contradicting it in ways that create new charges.

Dont give them what they want. Call an attorney instead.