Florida man arrested for buying Lamborghini with PPP money

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One of the first things David T. Hines bought when he got $4 million in COVID-19 relief loans from the feds for his supposedly ailing South Florida moving business was a super-luxury Lamborghini Huracan Evo, authorities say.

Needless to say, the Italian-made sports car — purchased by Hines in May for $318,497 — was not on the list of permissible expenses under a Small Business Administration loan program meant to protect employees and cover other legitimate costs like rent during the coronavirus pandemic.

Hines, who was arrested Friday, also spent thousands of dollars on dating websites, jewelry and clothes, along with stays at high-end hotels such as the Fontainebleau and Setai on Miami Beach.

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According to a criminal complaint, Hines’ four South Florida moving businesses applied for seven SBA loans totaling $13.5 million through the Bank of America, saying the money would be spent on at least 70 employees with a monthly payroll of $4 million. The bank approved three of his applications, totaling $3,984,557.

The reality: Hines’ companies, including Unified Relocation Solutions in Miami, showed monthly revenue and expenses averaging about $200,000 — “far less than the millions of dollars in payroll that Hines sought in the PPP applications,” a criminal affidavit says.

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Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Berger said certain SBA loan scammers have been able to exploit the Payroll Protection Program because while the federal agency is guaranteeing the COVID-19 relief loans issued by banks for eligible small businesses, it is not bothering to check any of the claims in their applications.

“In the ordinary course of providing the loan guaranty, neither the SBA nor any other government agency checked IRS records to confirm that the applicant had paid the payroll taxes represented in the PPP applications,” says the criminal affidavit.

After his SBA loans were approved, Bank of America began depositing hundreds of thousands of dollars in Hines’ business accounts. He transferred some of those funds into the savings account for Unified Relocation Solutions and then wired $318,497 to Lamborghini Miami, a luxury car dealership on Biscayne Boulevard in North Miami Beach, on May 18. The Huracan Evo was registered jointly to Hines and his business, records show.

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