Pandemic Fraud Cases So Far Top $1B
The $5 trillion in federal COVID-relief money approved in 2020 and 2021, with few strings and no oversight, has produced one of the largest frauds in American history. Some 1,500 people have already been charged.
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There are currently 500 people working on pandemic-fraud cases across the offices of 21 inspectors general, plus investigators from the F.B.I., the Secret Service, the Postal Inspection Service and the Internal Revenue Service, reports the New York Times.
The roughly $5 trillion in federal COVID-relief money approved in 2020 and 2021, with few strings and no oversight, has resulted in one of the largest frauds in American history, with billions of dollars stolen by thousands of people.
About 50 agents in a Small Business Administration office are sorting through two million potentially fraudulent loan applications.
The federal government has already charged 1,500 people with defrauding pandemic-aid programs, and more than 450 people have been convicted so far. Agents in the Labor Department’s inspector general’s office have 39,000 investigations going.
The Justice Department has charged people with about $1 billion in fraud so far, and is investigating other cases involving $6 billion more, but reports suggest the real number could be much higher.
The sheer number of cases means that some small-dollar thefts may never be prosecuted, even considering President Joe Biden’s recent extension of the statute of limitations for some pandemic-related fraud to 10 years from five.
