Alexandria man pleads guilty to defrauding pandemic relief programs of nearly $1.5M

Date: July 24, 2025

Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov

Alexandria, VA. — A former Air Force dentist pled guilty yesterday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud relating to his applications for and receipt of pandemic relief funds to which he was not entitled.

According to court documents, from April 2020 through December 2021, Muhammad Adil Quraish, of Alexandria, conspired with at least four co-conspirators to submit materially false applications for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and an Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL). PPP was a COVID-19 relief program intended to provide loans backed by the Small Business Administration to certain businesses, nonprofit organizations, and others to help them remain afloat during the pandemic. The purpose of the EIDL program was to enable small businesses to meet financial obligations and operating expenses during the pandemic.

After learning of the PPP and EIDL programs, Quraish discussed applying for EIDL and PPP loans with co-conspirators with intentionally inflated and falsified payroll information to receive loans that the businesses were not entitled to receive. Quraish inflated the numbers of employees each entity claimed as well as quarterly and annual payroll figures for several entities. Quraish created falsified payroll records and falsified IRS tax forms, and falsely certified or caused to be falsely certified that such forms had been filed with the IRS.

Quraish and his co-conspirators personally profited $1,471,599 from the fraud conspiracy. Quraish used the fraud proceeds to invest in cryptocurrency, among other things.

Quraish is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 22 and faces up to five years in prison. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Erik S. Siebert, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Kareem A. Carter, IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge of the Washington D.C. Field Office; Brig. Gen. Amy Bumgarner, Commander of the Office of Special Investigations for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force; Christopher Dillard, Special Agent in Charge for the Department of Defense, Office of Inspector General, Defense Criminal Investigative Service’s Mid-Atlantic Field Office (DCIS); and Christopher Heck, Acting Special Agent in Charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (ICE HSI) Washington, D.C., made the announcement after U.S. District Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. accepted the plea.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary H. Ray is prosecuting the case.

IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 19 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.