Mohammed Maio

Introduction

Mohammed Maio is a 44-year-old Phoenix man who was sentenced to ten years in federal prison for a Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan fraud scheme that obtained nearly $2.2 million in pandemic-relief loans for businesses with no employees — and for arming himself through a straw purchase while already a convicted felon. Maio was sentenced on October 13, 2026, by United States District Judge Michael T. Liburdi after pleading guilty to five counts: conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, bank fraud, felon in possession of a firearm, and making a materially false statement during the acquisition of a firearm. The case was investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives .

Background Information

Between May 2020 and March 2024 — a window that stretches well past the pandemic’s emergency phase — Maio conspired to fraudulently obtain and misuse multiple PPP and EIDL relief loans. According to the court record summarized by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, he submitted false information to secure nearly $2.2 million in loans for multiple businesses that had no employees, and used the proceeds for personal enrichment, including the purchase of multiple properties, rather than for any legitimate business purpose. The loan fraud alone would have made his case a standard pandemic-fraud prosecution; the firearm counts made it something prosecutors publicly emphasized as worse .

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Convicted by plea. Maio pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, bank fraud, felon in possession of a firearm, and a materially false statement during the acquisition of a firearm. The facts below come from his admissions and the sentencing announcement; no count was tried.

The scheme’s structure was the familiar pandemic-fraud pattern executed across multiple entities: companies conjured on paper, loan applications asserting payrolls and operations that did not exist, and nearly $2.2 million in relief funds flowing into accounts Maio controlled. The money bought him properties, not payroll. Because the fraud continued into 2024 — years after the PPP program’s original window — the case shows how pandemic-relief fraud prosecutions reached schemes that simply kept running after the emergency ended .

The firearm conduct that joined the fraud counts occurred in May 2021, when Maio — already a convicted felon, and therefore barred from possessing guns — arranged for his mother to purchase a firearm on his behalf. He admitted that he caused her to falsely state on the purchase application that the weapon was for her use rather than his, and that he then illegally possessed the gun she bought. That admission transformed a fraud case into an armed-fraud case, and ATF joined IRS-CI as a lead investigator .

At sentencing, Judge Liburdi imposed ten years — the prison term prosecutors had sought for a defendant whose conduct spanned both economic fraud and weapons offenses. The case numbers CR-25-00766-PHX-MTL and CR-26-00488-PHX-MTL reflect the two prosecutions that merged into his plea .

Public Reaction and Consequences

Three agency heads put their names on the announcement. U.S. Attorney Timothy Courchaine said Maio’s actions “resulted in significant financial loss to the U.S. government and exploited a program intended to provide relief to small businesses during a national crisis.” Scott Brown, acting special agent in charge of IRS Criminal Investigation’s Phoenix Field Office, said that “while business owners and families were struggling during the COVID pandemic, Maio was scheming to defraud the government relief programs for personal gain.” And A.J. Gibes, ATF’s Phoenix special agent in charge, drew the connection between the two halves of the case: “Not only did Mr. Maio commit fraud against the United States government, he illegally armed himself to protect his multi-million-dollar scheme” .

The consequences are a decade in federal prison, a five-count felony record by plea, and the permanent federal firearm prohibition that comes with felony status — already violated once, by his own admission .

Current Status

Maio was sentenced on October 13, 2026, and the sentence was announced the following day by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona. He faces delivery into Federal Bureau of Prisons custody to begin the ten-year term. The announcement did not detail a restitution schedule in the text available, and no appeal has been reported. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin M. Rapp handled the prosecution .

Impact on Their Career/Life

Maio’s ten-year sentence sits at the serious end of the pandemic-fraud sentencing spectrum, and the firearm counts are the reason: prosecutors and judges have treated COVID-loan fraud combined with weapons offenses as an aggravated category ever since the first waves of PPP prosecutions. His properties and scheme proceeds remain exposed to forfeiture and restitution collection, and his mother’s straw purchase — an offense she was exposed to as the nominal buyer — illustrates how these schemes implicate family members in federal felonies. The case is also a District of Arizona entry in the national ledger of COVID-fraud enforcement that the Justice Department continues to publicize as a signature achievement of its fraud-division era .

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Arizona, “Phoenix Man Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for $2.2 Million Covid-19 Fraud Scheme and Firearm Offenses,” October 14, 2026 — source
• IRS Criminal Investigation, “Phoenix man sentenced to 10 years in prison for $2.2 million COVID-19 fraud scheme and firearm offenses,” October 14, 2026 — source