Convicted of fraudulent Covid loan

The Schwyz criminal court imposed conditional prison sentences in an abbreviated procedure

An 82-year-old Swiss woman and a 53-year-old Serb were sentenced by the Schwyz criminal court to conditional prison sentences of 14 months each with a probationary period of two years for fraud and forgery. The trial before the Schwyz criminal court took place on Thursday in an abbreviated procedure.

“The company was already in financial difficulties” The elderly woman was listed as the chairman of the board of directors of a company that allegedly traded in water. The man was a member of the board of directors and served as a director. Shortly before the company went bankrupt in March 2021, the company applied for a Covid loan and received 180,000 francs.

However, the loan was evaded by providing false facts. In the application form, the director stated sales revenue of 1.8 million francs, even though sales revenue was 0 in 2018 and a good 6,000 francs in 2019. The entitlement to a Covid loan would therefore have been a maximum of 609 francs.

In 2020, sales revenue was just over 4,600 francs. According to the indictment, at the time the loan agreement was submitted, the company was “not yet in bankruptcy or probate proceedings or in liquidation, but was already in financial difficulties.”

“New law follows new fraud” In his brief oral justification for the verdict, court president Ruedi Beeler pointed out the problem of these short-term loans with the quote “New law follows new fraud”. As soon as the Covid-19 Solidarity Guarantee Ordinance came into force, the accused immediately applied for a loan to which they were not entitled.

To be honest, they didn’t make it difficult for people to get Corona loans. These loans were an important instrument to prevent healthy companies from being driven into bankruptcy as a result of corona-related liquidity bottlenecks. «And you took advantage of this instrument, for which you are sentenced. Just as I hope that we will never again find ourselves in the same situation as with the corona pandemic, I hope that this procedure has served as a sufficient lesson for you and that we will never see you in court again,” said Beeler.