Inside the iGas network: forged PPP loans, employee straw donors, and the $4.4 million fraud pipeline hiding in plain sight
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Here is a story about a man named Xianbin “Ben” Meng who controls eight shell corporations out of a single warehouse on Anderson Road in Tampa, Florida. His companies import fluorinated greenhouse gases from China. The EPA fined him $382,473 for environmental violations. The SBA gave him over a million dollars in COVID relief. And he has spent nearly three million dollars buying access to Florida’s most powerful politicians.
Every dollar of that COVID relief was forgiven by American taxpayers.
The contributions are still flowing today.
I know this because I searched every single PPP loan ever issued. All 11.7 million of them.
The PPP Loans Nobody Was Supposed to Find
When Congress created the Paycheck Protection Program in March 2020, it was meant to keep small businesses alive during COVID. The loans were designed to be forgiven if the money went to payroll. It was the largest small business relief program in American history.
Xianbin Meng saw an opportunity.
On April 9, 2020, his company iGas USA, Inc. applied for a PPP loan through BankUnited in Miami Lakes. The initial approval came through at $50,400, a modest amount consistent with a small operation of four or five employees.
Then something changed. The approved amount jumped to $505,100. That is a ten-fold increase, implying a payroll of $2.4 million per year and more than 60 employees.
The very next day, April 10, 2020, Meng’s second shell corporation, BMP USA, Inc., received its own PPP loan of $20,800 through the same bank. BMP USA listed its address as 8101 Anderson Road. iGas listed 8105 Anderson Road. The EPA would later confirm, under penalty of perjury, that all of Meng’s entities operate from the same address.
Both entities checked a box on their applications certifying they were a “New Business or 2 years or less.” EPA enforcement records show they were importing regulated gases as early as 2018.
In February 2021, both came back for seconds. iGas got another $505,505. BMP got $34,417.
All four loans were fully forgiven. The American taxpayer absorbed $1,075,139 so that a CCP-controlled corporation could make payroll.
Or so the applications claimed.
What Happened After the Money Arrived
Here is the timeline that prosecutors will find interesting.
February 2020: Two months before the first PPP loan, iGas USA writes a $50,000 check to Empower Parents PAC, a Florida political committee.
April 2020: iGas receives $505,100 in taxpayer-funded COVID relief. BMP receives $20,800 the next day.
October 2020: While PPP-funded payroll is still active, iGas employee Jie Su Sutherland writes $7,800 in contributions to Scott Franklin’s congressional campaign and a connected PAC. Her occupation on the FEC filings: “VP-HR & FINANCE” at “IGAS USA, INC.”
Think about that. The person responsible for human resources and finance at iGas, the person who would have prepared and certified the payroll numbers on those PPP applications, is simultaneously making political contributions.
January 2021: The first iGas PPP loan is forgiven. All $508,944.
February 2021: Before the ink is dry on that forgiveness, both entities apply for Round 2. iGas gets $505,505. BMP gets $34,417.
October through December 2022: The floodgates open. Meng, iGas USA, and Cool Master Pro LLC unleash over $870,000 in coordinated political contributions across dozens of committees in a matter of weeks.
A company that told the federal government it needed a million dollars in emergency relief to survive COVID was suddenly one of the largest political donors in the state of Florida.
The Straw Donors
This is where the story gets worse.
Federal election law makes it a crime to make a political contribution in someone else’s name. It is called a straw donor scheme, and it is a felony under 52 U.S.C. 30122. The reason is simple: voters have a right to know who is actually funding their politicians.
On August 5, 2025, two iGas employees made contributions to three Ashley Moody committees:
Juan Del Real, listed as VP of Manufacturing at “IGAS”:
- $7,000 to Moody For Florida
- $12,000 to Ashley Moody Victory Fund
- $5,000 to Florida Leads
Jie Su Sutherland, listed as VP-HR & Finance at “IGAS USA INC”:
- $7,000 to Moody For Florida
- $12,000 to Ashley Moody Victory Fund
- $5,000 to Florida Leads
Same three committees. Same date. Same amounts on two of three. Total: $48,000 in a single day from two employees of the same company to the same politician.
The probability of this being coincidental is zero. This is directed giving. An employer tells employees which committees to fund, how much to give, and when to give it. The employees are reimbursed through salary, bonuses, or other compensation. The true source of the money, Meng and iGas, is concealed behind the names of individual employees.
Juan Del Real does not even live in Florida. He lives in Baldwin Park, California, 2,500 miles away. Yet every contribution linked to his iGas employment targets Florida politicians. A VP of Manufacturing at a Tampa gas import company who lives in Southern California and exclusively funds Florida Republican campaigns is not making independent political decisions.
And there is one more detail about Del Real. On February 17, 2020, he gave $2,500 to Empower Parents PAC. On the exact same date, iGas USA gave $50,000 to the same PAC. The coordinated conduit pattern was operational before COVID even arrived.
The Ghost Donor
Then there is Xie Qin.
On June 20, 2023, a person named Xie Qin gave $34,500 to four Laurel Lee committees in a single day:
- $20,000 to Laurel Lee Victory Fund
- $5,000 to Double L PAC (Lee’s leadership PAC)
- $9,500 to Laurel Lee For Congress (split across primary and general election)
Ten days later, Xie Qin gave $6,600 to Harriet Hageman’s Wyoming congressional campaign, listing her occupation as “HOMEMAKER.”
A homemaker giving $41,100 to out-of-state politicians in ten days.
For the Lee contributions, the employer and occupation fields read “INFORMATION REQUESTED.” This means the committee never obtained the legally required information about who this person is and where the money came from. Under federal law, committees must use “best efforts” to obtain employer and occupation data within 30 days. A $34,500 contributor remaining unidentified is itself a reporting violation.
Xie Qin used two different addresses: Tampa zip code 33609 for the Hageman contribution and Saint Petersburg 33702 for the Lee contributions. The Tampa 33609 zip code is the same area where Meng lives. The surname “Xie” matches Meng’s wife, Kathy Xie.
The EPA Already Proved the Structure
If there were any doubt about Meng’s control over this network, the EPA eliminated it.
In February 2023, the EPA Environmental Appeals Board ratified Consent Agreement CAA-HQ-2022-8429. Meng signed it on January 19, 2023, under penalty of perjury, as president of all eight respondent entities:
- BMP International, Inc. (EIN: 20-8916439)
- LM Supply, Inc. (EIN: 47-2147224)
- BMP USA, Inc. (EIN: 46-4371008)
- Assured Comfort AC, Inc. (EIN: 37-1451843)
- Cool Master U.S.A., LLC (EIN: 81-4799735)
- iGas USA, Inc. (EIN: 36-4897416)
- Scales N Stuff, Inc. (EIN: 84-2866328)
- Golden G Imports, LLC (EIN: 83-4352080)
All eight share the same address. All eight are owned by iGas Holdings, Inc. All eight have separate EINs despite common ownership and common control. The violations involved importing 25,000+ metric tons of fluorinated greenhouse gases and failing to report under the Clean Air Act.
The DOJ jointly determined the case was appropriate for administrative penalty. That is significant because DOJ involvement signals awareness at the federal law enforcement level.
Meng paid the $382,473 penalty. Then he kept giving.
In the months and years after signing that consent agreement, Meng and his network have contributed over $1.2 million to political committees. Not despite the EPA enforcement action. Alongside it.
The Numbers
I have now traced the complete financial footprint of this network:
Category Amount PPP loans forgiven (taxpayer cost) $1,075,139 EPA penalty (Clean Air Act violations) $382,473 Meng personal contributions $2,813,286+ Del Real contributions (iGas VP) $35,100 Sutherland contributions (iGas VP-HR) $31,800 Xie Qin contributions (family conduit) $41,100 Total documented exposure $4,378,898+
And that total is conservative. It excludes EIDL loans, which are not publicly searchable. Each of Meng’s eight entities could have received up to $2 million in EIDL funds. If even half of them did, the taxpayer exposure doubles.
The biggest recipients of iGas network money in Florida:
- Byron Donalds: $500,000 (still flowing as of March 2026)
- Ashley Moody: $295,000+ (including employee straw donors and super PAC)
- Laurel Lee: $254,300+ (including Xie Qin conduit)
- NRCC: $765,600
What the Law Says
This is not a gray area. The applicable federal statutes read like a prosecution checklist:
52 U.S.C. 30122 (Straw donors): Making contributions in the name of another person. The Del Real and Sutherland coordinated same-day giving is textbook.
52 U.S.C. 30121 (Foreign national contributions): Contributions by foreign nationals or entities under de facto foreign control. The U.S. Commerce Department has made determinations regarding CCP control of entities like these.
18 U.S.C. 1343 (Wire fraud): The PPP applications were submitted electronically with certifications that were, based on the evidence, false.
18 U.S.C. 1014 (False statements to SBA): Claiming separate payrolls for entities that the EPA confirmed are controlled by a single individual at a single address.
18 U.S.C. 371 (Conspiracy): Coordinated action across three or more individuals contributing to three or more committees on the same dates.
18 U.S.C. 1956 (Money laundering): If PPP relief funds were recycled into political contributions, every contribution is a separate count.
The Questions That Need Answers
I have done what a forensic analyst can do with publicly available data. What remains requires subpoena power.
For the SBA Office of Inspector General: Why was iGas USA’s initial PPP approval of $50,400 increased tenfold to $505,100? What payroll documentation was submitted to justify this increase? Were the “New Business” certifications referred for investigation?
For IRS Criminal Investigation: Do the W-2 records for Del Real and Sutherland show salary increases, bonuses, or other compensation that correlate with the dates and amounts of their political contributions? Were PPP-funded payroll dollars recycled into political donations?
For the FEC: Why does Xie Qin’s employer remain listed as “INFORMATION REQUESTED” on $34,500 in contributions? What “best efforts” did the Laurel Lee committees make to obtain this information?
For DOJ Public Integrity: At what point does the convergence of foreign national contributions, straw donor schemes, PPP fraud, and EPA violations across a single network controlled by one individual at one address become a prosecutable conspiracy?
The data is in the public record. The SBA published the PPP loans. The FEC published the contributions. The EPA published the consent agreement. The Florida Division of Corporations published the corporate filings. None of this was hidden. It was simply never connected.
Until now.
Verify It Yourself
Every claim in this article is sourced from public records. Here are the databases:
- PPP Loans: SBA Bulk Data | FederalPay Lookup | ProPublica PPP Tracker
- FEC Contributions: FEC Individual Contributions Search | OpenSecrets Donor Lookup
- EPA Consent Agreement: CAA-HQ-2022-8429 (PDF)
- iGas Holdings v. EPA (D.C. Circuit): Case No. 23-1261
- Florida Corporate Filings: Sunbiz.org Entity Search
- Federal Statutes: 52 U.S.C. 30121 | 52 U.S.C. 30122 | 18 U.S.C. 1956
Chris Gleason is the CEO of RealTruth.AI and a declared Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Florida (2026). He is the developer of the SmurfHunter forensic platform and the original source for substantially all public reporting on ActBlue contribution structuring. The findings in this article are derived from SmurfHunter V4.0.0 analysis of 1.08 billion FEC records, 40.9 million voter registrations, and 11.7 million SBA PPP FOIA records.
FEC complaints have been filed against the iGas/CCP network and related committees. The full forensic report with supporting exhibits is available to law enforcement and regulatory agencies upon request.
