A former Algona meatpacking plant worker who obtained fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loans and recruited others into the scheme was convicted by a jury Thursday, after a 4-day trial in federal court in Sioux City. 48-year-old Yovany Ciero of Mason City, formerly of Cuba, Colombia, and Venezuela, was convicted of three counts of wire fraud, 23 counts of money laundering, one count of engaging in a monetary transaction in property derived from a specified unlawful activity, and one count of money laundering conspiracy.
In 2020, Ciero was working at the meatpacking plant in Algona when the COVID-19 pandemic began. Beginning in July 2020, Ciero, and over 100 other immigrants from Cuba, obtained fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loans on the false and fraudulent pretenses that they were self-employed businesspeople who earned about 100-thousand dollars in gross income in 2019 when they actually worked at the meatpacking plant or elsewhere in 2019. Ciero was one of six “bundlers” in the fraudulent PPP loan scheme, where he recruited individuals into the scheme, and obtained their personal identifying information for the fraudulent loan applications.
The evidence established that over 4-million dollars in fraudulent loan PPP applications were submitted, and the government lost over 2-point-4-million dollars as a result. Ciero is the 6th former Iowa meatpacking plant worker convicted in the PPP scheme. Ciero faces a possible maximum sentence of life in prison, and over 10-million dollars in fines.
