September 25, 2026

Bob Coleman
Founder & Publisher

Fraud Friday: Banker Processes $476,137 PPP Loan for Six-Day-Old LLC  

Robledo Industries LLC was registered with the Texas Secretary of State on July 21, 2020. Six days later, Hancock Whitney Bank approved it for a $476,137 Paycheck Protection Program loan.

The loan application said Robledo Industries had been operating on the PPP eligibility date of February 15, 2020, five months before the company was created. Fake documents were provided, specifically a 2019 Form 940 and first-quarter 2020 Form 941. The application contained false information about employees and payroll to support the loan amount.

And the banker processing the loan knew it; Feliciano Pineda, and he worked for Hancock Whitney Bank in Houston.

The bank funded the $476,137 PPP loan into Robledo Industries’ bank account on July 27. Then the money started moving back to Feliciano.

The “borrower” wrote 11 checks from the Hancock Whitney account. Every check was for $19,000. Every check was payable to Prosperous X LLC.

All 11 checks, totaling $209,000, were deposited into a Wells Fargo account controlled by Pineda.

The Robledo loan was part of a larger scheme.

From April through August 2020, Pineda helped several customers apply for PPP loans at Hancock Whitney. He admitted preparing paperwork for businesses he knew did not qualify for the loans, using false information about operating dates, employee counts and payroll.

Pineda also admitted creating a fake LLC and opening a business bank account to receive kickback checks from borrowers whose PPP loans he helped obtain. DOJ says he received more than $200,000 in PPP loan proceeds from borrowers involved in the scheme.

The plea agreement puts the loss to SBA and/or Hancock Whitney at approximately $2.1 million. 

The case continued long after the PPP money was gone. Pineda admitted withholding material information from investigators during interviews in August 2022, June 2023 and September 2023. 

On September 18, U.S. District Judge George C. Hanks Jr. sentenced the 38-year-old Pineda to 50 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay approximately $2.2 million in restitution.

His guilty plea also bars him from participating in the affairs of any financial institution in the future.