The Biden administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has charged more than 3,400 people with federal crimes and recovered more than $1.4 billion in stolen COVID-19 relief funds during the last three years, according to a newly-published report.
That figure barely scratches the surface of the estimated $283 billion that officials believe fraudsters collected from the pandemic relief program under then-President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.
Touting its progress in the latest report, the DOJ said the CFETF was successful in tracking down and reclaiming the stolen funds after setting up a “comprehensive program” to identify fraud, recover assets, and hold fraudsters accountable.
That program included the creation of five prosecutorial COVID-19 fraud enforcement “strike forces” based in California, Colorado, Maryland, New Jersey, and Florida. All were provided with dedicated funding to pursue pandemic fraud, according to the DOJ.
It also included the first-of-its-kind “National Unemployment Insurance Fraud Task Force” which utilizes data from state workforce agencies and the Small Business Administration to track down those who exploited pandemic relief programs.
Task Force Faces ‘Numerous Challenges’
“The task force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by, among other methods, augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts,” the report stated.While the CFETF has made “significant progress” in identifying, investigating, and punishing COVID-19 relief program fraudsters, officials noted that a substantial amount of work remains in the face of “numerous challenges.”
In its report, the CFETF noted that some investigative targets are increasingly arguing that the task force’s conduct falls outside the statute of limitations, casting doubt over its ability to hold the individuals accountable.
Democrats Propose Increased Funding
As a result, both the DOJ and the White House are urging Congress to pass newly introduced legislation, known as the Fraud Prevention and Recovery Act, which they say will ensure the task force can continue.The measure, introduced by Senate Democrats, including Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), would “crackdown on systemic pandemic fraud across government programs and help victims of identity theft recover,” according to a statement from the White House.
The bill includes proposals such as tripling funding to the prosecutorial COVID-19 fraud enforcement strike forces to $300 million and raising the cap on penalties in civil fraud cases to $1 million from $150,000.
The measure would also extend the statute of limitations on pandemic unemployment insurance fraud to 10 years from five years and provide the task force with $75 million to create a Social Security number verification system aimed at preventing identity theft, according to the White House.
“The time is now to ensure law enforcement has what it needs to finish the job,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement. “The statute of limitations must be extended and the necessary funding and data analytic tools secured for our prosecutors to recover hundreds of millions of dollars more in fraud proceeds, bring remaining offenders to justice, and disrupt criminal networks that continue to victimize our citizens.”
