The Guardian and New York Times report that claims by recently-elected congressman George Santos may be largely fictitious.
Santos may not have worked at Citigroup or Goldman Sachs, graduated from a New York college or run a pet rescue charity. Santos claimed that his family owned a portfolio of 13 properties; the Times found only one – an apartment in Rio de Janeiro. Claims that he owns a corporation providing an annual salary of U$750,000 and millions in dividends have also been questioned. The Times found records of a 2010 charge in Santos' native Brazil for using a stolen chequebook to buy shoes, and two eviction proceedings against him in New York over the past seven years. He asserted in an interview that his company, the Devolder Organization, had “lost four employees” at the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. Reportedly none of the 49 victims were connected to Devolder.
In statements to the Times Goldman Sachs and Citigroup indicated they had no record of Santos ever working there. Baruch College did not find any record of Santos studying there and the Internal Revenue Service was unable to locate a record for an animal rescue group, Friends of Pets United, that Santos claimed he had run for five years beginning in 2013.
Shades of past resume concoction such as that noted here and here.
