He Spent $57,000 in Covid Relief on a Pokémon Card. Now the U.S. Owns It

A mint Charizard Pokémon trading card will be auctioned off with other fraudulently obtained luxury items seized by the U.S. Marshals after its former owner was sentenced to three years in prison for purchasing the card with COVID relief money. The 31-year-old from Dublin, GA, pled guilty to frauding a loan program operated by the Small Business Administration. In January 2021, Mr. Oudomsine spent $57,789 of loan proceeds from the program on the card, a first-edition Charizard released in 1999 that features a dragon-like creature from the Pokémon franchise, court documents show. Five months earlier, he had received an $85,000 loan from the program for his small "entertainment services" business, which he had claimed had 10 employees and gross revenues of $235,000 during the 12 months before the coronavirus pandemic. However, prosecutors said, there was no such business. (NYTimes)

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