Those of us who got COVID-19 stimulus payments last year may have gone and spent them on something nice for ourselves – but one man in America allegedly took it to the next evolution.
US prosecutors have accused Vinath Oudomsine, from Dublin, Georgia, of conning the Government out of $85,000 USD (around $113,250 AUD) in COVID-19 business loans, claiming he ran a business employing ten other people.
However, the Feds say that business never existed, and he instead spent the bulk of the money – $57,789 USD, or about $77,000 AUD – on a rare Pokémon card (which has not been identified).
Shockingly, this is only about the tenth most expensive Pokémon card of all time according to a list from Kotaku, with the top spot taken out by a $375,000 USD (almost $500,000 AUD) “Illustrator Pikachu” card sold in February this year.
If convicted of wire fraud, Oudomsine faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 USD fine – a sobering lesson to the rest of us on the dangers of taking “catching ‘em all” too seriously.
