Man made millions off pesticides he claimed could kill COVID - but they didn’t, feds say

A businessman sold pesticides he falsely claimed could kill the COVID-19 virus, capitalizing off his customers’ fear during the pandemic and earning him millions, federal officials said. He’s now been sentenced to five years in prison.

Paul Andrecola, 63, ran two New Jersey-based companies that manufactured disinfectant products using the brand name “GCLEAN,” according to a Dec. 8 news release from the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey.

None of the GCLEAN products were approved by the EPA as being effective against the coronavirus, according to officials. None of the products were even registered with the EPA in any capacity.

An attorney for Andrecola could not immediately be reached for comment by McClatchy News.

Around March 2020, Andrecola put another company’s EPA registration numbers on his own products and then promoted them as being EPA-approved to eliminate COVID-19, according to officials. Investigators say he produced “numerous” fake documents to bolster his claim.

In a video posted to YouTube last year, Andrecola introduced himself as the “inventor and producer of the GCLEAN line” before plugging the various products. He stated, “One of the first products we’re going to show you is — because of this pandemic situation that we’re in — is our GCLEAN sanitizer line. It is a premium product.”

Between 2021 and 2021, Andrecola earned more than $2.7 million from the sale of his falsely marketed GCLEAN products, officials said. A school district in Wisconsin, a medical clinic in Georgia and a police department in Delaware were among his hundreds of customers across the country.

Andrecola pleaded guilty earlier this year to multiple charges, including wire fraud and presenting false claims to the United States, according to officials. He was sentenced to five years in prison on Dec. 8 and has been ordered to forfeit all of his proceeds related to the illegally marketed products.

“Today’s sentence holds the defendant accountable for perpetrating the largest pandemic fraud case related to the sale of unregistered pesticides charged nationwide,” Special Agent in Charge Tyler Amon of EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division in New Jersey stated in the release.

Americans lost over half a billion dollars to COVID-related fraud during the beginning of the pandemic, according to CNBC.

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