{"id":150380,"date":"2022-04-24T16:18:39","date_gmt":"2022-04-24T20:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/?p=150380"},"modified":"2022-04-24T16:22:53","modified_gmt":"2022-04-24T20:22:53","slug":"how-opportunists-got-rich-off-covid-19-pandemic-by-stealing-our-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/how-opportunists-got-rich-off-covid-19-pandemic-by-stealing-our-money\/","title":{"rendered":"How opportunists got rich off COVID-19 pandemic by stealing our money"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On Saturday, April 26, 2020, Robert Stewart Jr., a 33-year-old contractor from Virginia, invited an investigative reporter to take a trip on his private jet.<\/p>

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\u201cI\u2019m talking with you against the advice of my attorney,\u201d Stewart laughed, before bringing J. David McSwane aboard a luxury Legacy 450 Flexjet, which he\u2019d rented to deliver six million N95 masks during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

Stewart had recently landed a $34.5 million contract with the US Department of Veterans Affairs, which operates the nation\u2019s largest network of hospitals, promising to provide them with enough of the medical-grade (and at the time, scarce) masks to meet the overwhelming demand.<\/p>

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Problem was, there were no masks aboard the plane.<\/p>

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\u201cThe only reason I took the plane was because of my parents,\u201d Stewart explained to McSwane. \u201cThey\u2019re old and I didn\u2019t want them to get sick, and I wanted them to see this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/a>
Robert Stewart (above) secured a $34.5 million contract to supply the Department of US Veterans Affairs with six million N95 masks. Although he claimed to have secured the masks, they were never delivered.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stewart said he was a dedicated businessman with the best of intentions, trying to do his part in a global pandemic even though all the odds were against him. It wasn\u2019t his fault that he wasn\u2019t able to deliver as promised, even if he\u2019d already spent some of the money \u2014including, ostensibly, for the private jet.<\/p>

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\u201cIt took me a while, but I broke through the bulls\u2013t,\u201d he told McSwane, painting himself as an underdog fighting against bureaucracy to save lives.<\/p>\n

McSwane recounts the meeting in his new book, \u201cPandemic, Inc. Chasing the Capitalists and Thieves Who Got Rich While We Got Sick<\/a>\u201d (Atria\/One Signal Publishers), out now, which illustrates how\u00a0COVID-19 became a boon to entrepreneurs<\/a>\u00a0like Stewart. Having access to essential medical supplies, or even just pretending to, became \u201can unexpected ticket to riches\u201d early in the pandemic, McSwane writes, as the federal government \u201ccast money out indiscriminately, like chum into the sea, and just see what bites.\u201d<\/p>

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\"Developments<\/a>
Developments in bio-tech, particularly around treatments and vaccines, helped pharmaceutical company founders become billionaires during the pandemic.<\/figcaption>
AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Like most of the COVID profiteers, Stewart wasn\u2019t being paid by the federal government upfront. Instead, he got a purchase order from the VA, proving that his deal was backed by Uncle Sam. It was then up to Stewart to find a private investor to give him a high-interest loan, to pay for things like equipment, employees and private jets. When the masks were delivered, \u201cthe feds pay up,\u201d writes McSwane.<\/p>

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The real money is made in the markup, which can be substantial. The average cost for an N95 is just $1 per mask. \u201cBut Stewart had gotten the VA to agree to pay almost $6 a piece,\u201d writes McSwane. That\u2019s a 350 percent markup. Multiply that margin by six million, and Stewart stood to walk away a very, very rich man.<\/p>\n

COVID-19 has destroyed countless lives, but it also created about\u00a0500 new billionaires<\/a>\u00a0like Moderna CEO St\u00e9phane Bancel and BioNTech co-founder U\u011fur \u015eahin. Thanks to the pandemic economy, US billionaires saw their wealth\u00a0surge 62 percent<\/a>, or $1.8 trillion. \u201cIn contrast,\u201d writes McSwane, \u201cthe entire relief package Congress passed to keep poor and middle-income Americans from poverty, totaled just a little more, about $2.2 trillion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Moderna<\/a>
Moderna CEO St\u00e9phane Bancel (left) and BioNTech co-founder U\u011fur \u015eahin (right) are among the 500 new billionaires minted during the pandemic. In total, US billionaires gained $1.8 trillion in new wealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Despite<\/a>
Despite being sold for an average of just $1 a piece, the VA agreed to pay $6 for each N95 mask Stewart delivered \u2014 a 350% markup.<\/figcaption>
AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stewart wanted to become one of those pandemic billionaires. McSwane first heard about him in a\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/a>\u00a0story, in which Stewart claimed, \u201cI\u2019m getting ready to step on a Boeing 737 to bring the masks to the VA. I\u2019m looking at a few million masks right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

McSwane smelled something fishy, especially after he looked into Stewart\u2019s track record, and found he \u201chad no apparent experience buying, importing, freighting or reselling medical equipment even in the bustling days before the world shut down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stewart had somehow gotten this job \u201cwithout the usual competitive bidding, under emergency guidelines that lifted red tape meant to weed out fraud, patronage and waste,\u201d McSwane writes. And he did it, according to Stewart, just because he promised that he could.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A massive mark-up was also the goal of Ronald Romano, a used-car salesman from New Jersey who tried to sell N95 masks for $4 each \u2014 a 400% premium.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe federal government was desperate,\u201d McSwane writes. \u201cAmericans were terrified, and Stewart offered a solution with just a few emails.\u201d<\/p>\n

So McSwane reached out to Stewart, who he agreed met him at Dulles International Airport, just outside of Washington DC, in his plane \u2014 and he immediately admitted that he didn\u2019t have any masks.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019d been up all night making calls, and he believed he had a new lead,\u201d McSwane writes. It helped that he was armed with a multi-million dollar government purchase order. All he had to do was \u201cfind a guy who knew a guy who had masks or knew of someone who might know of someone who did,\u201d McSwane writes.<\/p>\n

\"Many<\/a>
Many unlikely \u2014 if not dubious \u2014 companies secured multi-million dollar windfalls from the federal government to produce crucial medical supplies during the pandemic. One of the most curious is California-based Medea, a vodka company awarded a $48.8 million FEMA deal to make masks.<\/figcaption>
Instagram<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the novel coronavirus infections surged in March of 2020, the National Strategic Stockpile, the nation\u2019s emergency stockpile of drugs and medical supplies,\u00a0was unprepared. Robert Kadlec, the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, claimed that US hospitals had\u00a0less than one percent<\/a>\u00a0of the masks needed if COVID developed into a full-on pandemic.<\/p>\n

The news only got worse. Navy Rear Adm. John Polowczyk, tapped by President Trump in early 2020 to coordinate the federal government\u2019s collection and distribution of medical supplies, was shocked that the nation\u2019s stockpile \u201cwas being managed by way of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and a whiteboard,\u201d McSwane writes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn other words, every drug store, supermarket and retail chain in America had a better grasp on its inventory than the most powerful country in the world did of its own emergency supplies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ohio-based<\/a>
Ohio-based tampon-maker Aunt Flow received a $14.7 million contract from the VA to manufacture masks after its core business took a hit because of Covid.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Some<\/a>
Some $5.6 billion worth of federal contracts during the pandemic went to first-time contractors. One such novice was Bayhill Defense, a company that manufactures weaponry, which received a $14.5 million contract.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The government invested\u00a0nearly $40 billion<\/a>\u00a0on pandemic-related contracts, with $5.6 billion going to first-time federal contractors, many of them with no experience finding or distributing medical supplies. Some were jaw-droppingly unqualified.<\/p>\n

The 300 first-time federal contractors included Bayhill Defense, a Pittsburgh-based company granted a\u00a0$14.5 million contract<\/a>\u00a0to provide ten million N95 masks by the Department of Veterans Affairs, despite the fact that prior to the pandemic, they only made and sold \u201cnon-standard ammunition and weapons\u201d (according to\u00a0its website<\/a>) like assault rifles and grenade launchers.<\/p>\n

The VA also gave a\u00a0$14.7 million mask contract<\/a>\u00a0to Aunt Flow, an Ohio-based company that sells tampons for public restroom dispensers. With sales dipping because of the pandemic, they used their China manufacturing facilities to produce surgical masks instead. Medea Inc., a California-based boutique vodka company, also landed a\u00a0$48.8 million deal<\/a>\u00a0from FEMA to make surgical masks.<\/p>\n

There were so many dubious contractors, the New York City Mayor\u2019s Office of Contract Services established an ad hoc group of purchasing staff that dubbed themselves the GAG team. \u201cIt stood for \u2018I Got A Guy,\u2019 a mocking reference to multitude of solicitations filling city emails and voicemail systems which often made reference to a friend or a friend of a friend who had a warehouse filled with masks,\u201d writes McSwane.<\/p>\n

\"Navy<\/a>
Navy Rear Adm. John Polowczyk, who coordinated the federal government\u2019s collection and distribution of medical supplies, said that \u201cevery drug store, supermarket and retail chain in America had a better grasp on its inventory than the most powerful country in the world.\u201d<\/figcaption>
AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe were in a moral conundrum of having to run down every lead,\u201d GAG\u2019s chief procurement officer Dan Symon told McSwane. \u201cBecause what if it really does come through?\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the contractors offering to save the city didn\u2019t deliver as promised, including Ronald Romano, a New Jersey used car salesman who hatched a plot to sell New York millions of N95 masks at $4 each, a 400 percent markup from the usual street price. Had he succeeded, it would have netted him a profit of $45 million.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t have any masks. So, to pull off the scam, he enlisted a friend to use a defunct business as a front, and \u201canother well-connected associate who happened to be the former foreign investment minister for Macedonia,\u201d McSwane writes.<\/p>\n

\"Dan<\/a>
Dan Symon headed up GAG, a team at the New York City Mayor\u2019s Office, which followed the seemingly endless reports of dubious contractor deals.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to court records, Romano\u00a0texted a business partner<\/a>\u00a0on March 9th to brag about his financial windfall. \u201cI\u2019m working on a few deals that if I get any of them, you might be buying a Ferrari,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018I\u2019m getting ready to step on a Boeing 737 to bring the masks to the VA. I\u2019m looking at a few million masks right now.\u2019<\/p>\n

Robert Stewart, publicly lying about his access to masks after procuring government funding<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

Despite having no credentials and no actual proof that he could deliver masks, he was awarded an enormous payday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an extremely unusual sidestep of the standard procurement process, the City of New York had signaled that it would be willing to wire payment for medical supplies upfront, before anything was delivered,\u201d McSwane writes. \u201cThis gave the city an edge over the competition, which was fierce, but also exposed the city to obvious risks.\u201d<\/p>\n

If it wasn\u2019t for the GAG team, who flagged Romano\u2019s solicitation and passed it along to federal prosecutors, he would have gotten away with it. Instead,\u00a0Romano was arrested<\/a>\u00a0on three felony counts of fraud in May 2020.<\/p>\n

\"J.<\/a>
J. David McSwane (above), author of the new book \u201cPandemic, Inc.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More than 2,200 employees tested positive for the virus at the VA hospitals waiting for Stewart\u2019s N95 masks, claims McSwane. In the end, the agency paid Stewart nothing, but he did obtain a loan of over $800,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program, and another $261,000 from the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, which provides financing to small businesses during disasters.<\/p>\n

After being busted by federal prosecutors, Stewart pleaded guilty in early 2021 to three counts of making false statements, wire fraud, and theft of government funds.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaxpayers had paid for it all, theatrics included,\u201d McSwane writes. \u201cThese were mad times, and Stewart was far from the only person to cave to the temptation of quick and easy government money.\u201d According to the\u00a0US Justice Department<\/a>, during just one year, 474 people have been charged with trying to steal more than $569 million through fraud schemes related to the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Saturday, April 26, 2020, Robert Stewart Jr., a 33-year-old contractor from Virginia, invited an investigative reporter to take a trip on his private jet. \u201cI\u2019m talking with you against the advice of my attorney,\u201d Stewart laughed, before bringing J. David McSwane aboard a luxury Legacy 450 Flexjet, which he\u2019d rented to deliver six million […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":140209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional"],"yoast_head":"\nHow opportunists got rich off COVID-19 pandemic by stealing our money - Antigua News Room<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/how-opportunists-got-rich-off-covid-19-pandemic-by-stealing-our-money\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How opportunists got rich off COVID-19 pandemic by stealing our money\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On Saturday, April 26, 2020, Robert Stewart Jr., a 33-year-old contractor from Virginia, invited an investigative reporter to take a trip on his private jet. \u201cI\u2019m talking with you against the advice of my attorney,\u201d Stewart laughed, before bringing J. 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