Investigations

On July 21, 2021, a grand jury in the Central District of California indicted Western Distribution, LLC and its owner, Carl Bradley Johansson, for bank fraud and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. The indictment alleges that Johansson fraudulently obtained over $667,000 in loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a provision of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Stimulus Act. The indictment also alleges that in April 2020, Western applied and was approved for a PPP loan in the amount of $436,390. The application listed Johansson's son as the company owner. Western allegedly spent its PPP funds in May and June 2020, primarily on expenses unrelated to its payroll. In April 2020, another Johansson-controlled trucking company—identified in the indictment as Co-conspirator #1—applied to a different federally insured bank and received a PPP loan in the amount of $286,505. The application listed Johansson’s 85-year-old mother as Co-conspirator #1’s owner. Johansson committed all of the alleged actions while on pretrial release.

 

DOT-OIG is conducting this investigation with the Internal Revenue Service–Criminal Investigation Division and with assistance from the Small Business Administration-OIG