2024 - Covid aid for companies - 200 procedures: This is how the canton of Aargau chases the Covid credit scammers

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During the corona pandemic, companies were able to request financial support. The fraud cases now need a lot of staff.

Since July, employees of the public prosecutor’s office and cantonal police have been jointly investigating business people in the canton of Aargau.
It is about alleged Covid credit fraud in the millions. Around 50 cases have been settled so far.
The effort involved in the investigation is great, as the Aargau authorities explained at a media conference. Additional staff was hired.

At the police station in Buchs near Aarau, public prosecutors and police officers are looking for evidence of fraud in huge mountains of data. After companies that wrongly applied for and received Covid aid.

During the pandemic, the federal government and the cantons promised the economy uncomplicated help: loans, income replacement for the self-employed, short-time work compensation, cantonal hardship benefits. Some company owners have unjustly benefited from this and, for example, financed private purchases.

Legend:

Closed specialist shops (such as Möbel Pfister here in Suhr near Aarau), a lack of orders: many companies were entitled to corona aid. But some have unjustly benefited from it.

SRF/Maurice Velati

It’s about millions that may already be lost

So far, around 230 procedures are running in the canton of Aargau alone, according to the Aargau Interior Department. It is about an alleged 25 million Swiss francs, which companies would have received wrongly. About a quarter of these cases have been closed.

However, it is unclear whether the state can collect the money in full, according to the cantonal public prosecutor. Funds that have not yet been spent would be “blocked or secured immediately”.

Of course, the illegal receipt of Covid19 aid funds is a national phenomenon. The investigating authorities are also dealing with this in other cantons.

The Zurich judiciary, for example, has uncovered a good 300 corona loan frauds since the beginning of the corona pandemic, as it explained in its annual report in May. This is about a suspected crime of over 50 million francs.

The public prosecutor’s office in the canton of Lucerne had already announced in March that they had investigated over 60 cases of fraud involving a total of almost 20 million francs in the past year.

In the canton of Solothurn, two external employees were also hired (on a part-time basis) to handle the investigations, as the government explained in a response to parliament in August. There is a suspicion of abuse at 39 companies, the alleged amount of the crime is around 1.5 million francs.

Further cantonal figures can be found on the website of the Federal Department of Finance linked in the main article.

Almost 1,800 criminal charges are currently pending across Switzerland for Covid credit fraud. That’s what they show Figures from the Federal Department of Finance (as of the end of August). The suspected amount of the crime is a good 32 million francs.

So far, credit fraud amounting to a good CHF 6.6 million has been proven. However, these data should be treated with some caution, as different statistics are kept. This does not include, for example, misused aid funds from cantons.