Coppell man pleads guilty to using $17 million in ill-gotten federal PPP loans to buy houses, luxury cars

A Coppell man who fraudulently obtained more than $17 million in Payroll Protection Program funds last year — which he used to buy multiple homes and an assortment of luxury vehicles — faces up to 30 years in prison after his conviction on federal charges this week.

Dinesh Kumar Sah, 55, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering. He had been indicted on two additional counts of wire fraud and three counts of bank fraud, which were dropped in a plea agreement.

Sah admitted submitting 15 applications for funding from the PPP, a federal program designed to give forgivable loans to small businesses to help them keep employees on their payrolls during the coronavirus pandemic, seeking a total of about $24.8 million.

According to court documents, Sah said that these businesses had hundreds of employees and fabricated bank statements and tax documents to support his claims. In fact, his businesses had no employees, and many of them were not even registered until after the CARES Act was enacted in March 2020.

Sah received about $17.7 million in loans, which he immediately used for extravagant personal spending.

Beginning last summer until just before his arrest in September, Sah purchased five houses in Coppell that had listing prices of $292,000 to $449,990. He also paid off the mortgage on his home and two properties in California, bought several luxury cars and sent millions of dollars in international money transfers.

As part of the plea agreement, Sah is forfeiting those eight homes and a number of vehicles: a 2017 Audi A6, a 2020 Bentley Continental convertible, a 2017 Cadillac XT5, a 2020 Cadillac XT6, a 2020 Chevrolet Corvette and a 2015 Porsche Macan. The government also has seized more than $7 million from him.

Sah’s sentencing date has not been scheduled.

“The Paycheck Protection Program was designed to aid struggling business owners, not to line the pockets of crafty profiteers,” Prerak Shah, the acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said in a written statement. “Even as fellow businesspeople tried desperately to procure the funds they needed to keep their business afloat, Sah dipped into federal coffers to fund his lavish lifestyle.”

The Department of Justice says it has prosecuted more than 100 people in fraud cases related to the CARES Act.

Sah also has been indicted on charges of family-violence assault and injury to a child in Dallas County, stemming from separate June incidents in which he is accused of choking his wife and grabbing a child’s neck. Court records show that his wife filed for divorce days later.