An Online Lender Gave Hundreds of PPP Loans to Fake Farms. Now Congress Is Investigating.

A House committee has opened a formal investigation into how several online lenders may have facilitated fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loans, following reporting by ProPublica and other news outlets.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis probe seeks answers from Kabbage and BlueVine, online lending platforms that processed hundreds of thousands of government-backed loans to small businesses, as well as Celtic Bank and Cross River Bank, which frequently partnered with the web-based lenders.

Although these highly automated lenders helped the Small Business Administration’s $800 billion relief program reach small businesses that weren’t being served by traditional banks, they also became targets for cheaters.

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