Here Are the Alleged Scams George Santos Got Busted For

George Santos was taken into federal custody on Wednesday, with the Justice Department charging him with 13 criminal counts related to various schemes the serial liar has allegedly perpetrated in recent years. The arrest couldn’t be less surprising considering what’s already been revealed about the Long Island congressman’s rich history as a con artist.

“Taken together, the allegations in the indictment charge Santos with relying on repeated dishonesty and deception to ascend to the halls of Congress and enrich himself,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement. “He used political contributions to line his pockets, unlawfully applied for unemployment benefits that should have gone to New Yorkers who had lost their jobs due to the pandemic, and lied to the House of Representatives.”

Santos was charged with seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to Congress. He pleaded not guilty to all 13 counts, and is being released on $500,000 bond “WITCH HUNT!” Santos tweeted later on Wednesday.

The indictment outlines three primary schemes:

Scamming Unemployment Money

Prosecutors alleged that in June 2020, Santos applied for unemployment insurance benefits in New York, claiming to have been out of work since that March. Santos allegedly continued to certify that he was unemployed and eligible for benefits. The indictment notes, however, that he was very much employed during this period, working as a regional director at an investment firm in Florida, where he was pulling in around $120,000 annually. The indictment notes that Santos ultimately received close to $25,000 in fraudulent unemployment benefits.

The alleged scam is even more egregious considering Santos has been working in Congress to toughen work requirements for Medicaid recipients, as Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern pointed out on Wednesday:

Scamming Donor Money

Prosecutors also allege that Santos, working with an unnamed individual, solicited donations to a company controlled by Santos, promising prospective donors that their money would be used on his 2022 congressional campaign. Instead, the indictment says, Santos used tens of thousands of dollars of the money for “his personal benefit, including to make cash withdrawals, personal purchases of luxury designer clothing, credit card payments, a car payment, payments on personal debts” and more.

“It’s uncommon to see a federal candidate violate law so blatantly in terms of the fundraising here,” Michael Kang, professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and expert in campaign finance, tells Rolling Stone. “It seems intentional. It seems like a knowing violation of the law. It’s not really campaign finance law in a technical sense, because the entity for which he was raising money turned out not to be a campaign finance vehicle, which is a problem for him.”

Lying to Congress

Santos was also charged with lying to Congress when he was a candidate in both 2020 and 2022. The indictment alleges that on congressional financial disclosure forms in 2020 he misrepresented how much he earned by tens of thousands of dollars. It was even worse in 2022, when prosecutors say he lied about earning $750,000 a year from his own company, from which he received between $1 million and $5 million in dividends annually. He also allegedly lied that he had between $100,001 and $250,000 in a checking account and between $1 million and $5 million in a savings account.

“Those lies on the personal financial disclosures and FEC reports certainly deprived voters of valuable information about funding his campaign and who he might be beholden to, and that’s really critical information voters have a right to know going into an election,” Shanna Ports, senior counsel for campaign finance at the Campaign Legal Center, which brought an FEC complaint against Santos earlier this year, explains to Rolling Stone.

The indictment notes that candidates are required to ensure the forms are “true, complete, and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief.” Prosecutors allege Santos was well aware his were false. He lost his congressional bid in 2020, but won last November. Details about how Santos conned his way into office began to emerge a month later and now, after less than six months on the job, simply retaining his seat in Congress may be the least of his concerns.