Koreatown Man Arrested on Charges that He Obtained More Than $2 Million in COVID Business Loans That He Invested in Cryptocurrency

LOS ANGELES - A rideshare driver from the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles has been arrested on a five-count federal indictment charging him with fraudulently obtaining more than $2 million in COVID-19 pandemic business-relief loans on behalf of his nonexistent companies, which he instead used to buy cryptocurrency, the Justice Department announced today.

Bruce Choi, 34, was arrested Tuesday at San Francisco International Airport after arriving on a flight from Japan. He is charged with four counts of wire fraud affecting a financial institution and one count of transactional money laundering.

He is expected to make his initial appearance today in United States District Court in San Francisco. He will be arraigned in Los Angeles federal court in the coming weeks.

According to the indictment, which was returned in October 2025 and unsealed today, from May 2020 to December 2024, Choi schemed to defraud the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and financial institutions out of government funds aimed to help businesses weather the COVID-19 pandemic's economic fallout.

Choi, representing himself as the CEO and owner of a business called "Premier Republic," applied for a $1,995,000 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan. In support of this application, Choi falsely claimed that Premier Republic had an average monthly payroll of $798,000, was in operation in mid-February 2020, and paid salaries and payroll taxes.

In fact, Premier Republic was a fictional entity that neither had business operations nor hired anyone.

To support his false claim that Premier Republic was a real business, Choi submitted to a lender several fraudulent documents, including a fake 2019 individual tax return that claimed his "company" received gross receipts of nearly $11.8 million in 2019 and that it made a gross profit of nearly $9.6 million that year.

Choi also submitted a fake bank statement listing "deposits" and "transfers" of $798,000 during the fictitious period of February 1, 2020, through February 31, 2020.

Further, Choi submitted a fraudulent Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) application through the SBA in which he falsely stated his business "Bruce" was involved in real estate, employed 10 people, and enjoyed gross revenues of $475 million in 2019. In fact, no such business existed.

As a result of his scheme, the victim lender disbursed $1,995,000 to Choi and the U.S. Treasury disbursed a $10,000 EIDL advance. Choi later wired proceeds from his scheme to a Kraken cryptocurrency exchange account.

Pursuant to a court-issued warrant, federal prosecutors have seized nearly 40 bitcoins and other cryptocurrency as part of the investigation.

An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent until and unless proven guilty in court.

If convicted, Choi would face a statutory maximum sentence of 30 years in federal prison for each wire fraud count and up to 10 years in federal prison on the money laundering count.

IRS Criminal Investigation, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Office of Inspector General, Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, and the SBA's Office of Inspector General are investigating this matter.

Assistant United States Attorney Tara B. Vavere of the Asset Forfeiture and Recovery Section and Assistant United States Attorney Alexander B. Schwab, Acting Chief of the Criminal Division, are prosecuting this case.