Justice Dept. brings wave of cases over $836 million in alleged covid fraud
Justice Dept. brings wave of cases over $836 million in alleged covid fraud
Hundreds of suspects are accused of bilking pandemic-era government programs, even using the funds to finance violent crime at times.
In one of the largest national crackdowns on fraud targeting federal coronavirus aid, the Justice Department on Wednesday said it had brought 718 law enforcement actions in connection with the alleged theft of more than $836 million.
The vast array of criminal charges and other sanctions — part of a federal sweep conducted over the past three months — reflected the ongoing, costly work in Washington to recover stolen pandemic funds roughly three years after the peak of the public health crisis.
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The number seemed really small, but in the article it says:
The Justice Department said Wednesday that it had filed charges or at least launched investigations related to roughly $8.6 billion in alleged coronavirus aid fraud since the start of the pandemic. That included hundreds of new cases, pleas, sentences and other developments secured as part of an enforcement campaign it ramped up from May through July.
Which is better, but still not close to enough. I remember the reports coming out years ago that said:
...participating in what experts say is the theft of as much as $80 billion — or about 10 percent — of the $800 billion handed out in a Covid relief plan known as the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP. That’s on top of the $90 billion to $400 billion believed to have been stolen from the $900 billion Covid unemployment relief program — at least half taken by international fraudsters
It’s maddening that there was so much fraud, while legitimate businesses often got very little or no help at all. There were SO many hoops to jump through for PPP/EIDL I really don’t understand how all these “companies” were able to get money. They wanted payroll reports, tax filings, licenses that are easily verifiable online. Ffs the first round of PPP we couldn’t get anything because first the banks had “exhausted all their funds” on all their “whale” clients. In our case our bank was out of funds before the application was even online to apply with. Or if you had a certain business structure (totally legit, mind you) they didn’t have a backup plan for 1 form they required. The see so many consumers so angry about PPP loans being forgiven, but I feel like most of those people don’t realize the actual small businesses typically got screwed both ways. As a small business and as a consumer.
The answer is banks. Banks helped them get money and it was more profitable for the banks to assist wealthier customers first.
Oh, yeah, I totally know WHY it happened. It guess I worded it wrong. Why was it allowed to happen would be a more accurate question, but I know the answer to that too. Trump and government as a whole being bought and paid for.
Republicans specifically refused to sign anything if it had any sort of oversight. They would only sign something that had no government oversight. We knew from day 1 exactly what would happen.
I have a friend who was working at a bank for small business loans. He said it was a massive clusterfuck. There were no instructions, no one knew what to do, so they first just started gathering info so they could put the PPP applications when they did have direction, then that was all useless or something when the rules finally came in, and then it was all gone.
Definitely a mix of corruption for inside tracks, and bad communication which made prioritizing the largest applications first while everyone honest was scrambling to try to get people help in the chaos.
The article is about individuals being charged. Businesses are not listed as being investigated or charged.
There’s mention of the PPP loans (the ones that were forgiven) which means the people being charged are related to fake businesses or businesses that lied. Govt isn’t going to go after a business, but they will definitely go after the person that signed their name on the dotted line.