Washington: The theft of more than $830 million in COVID-19 emergency aid has been accused by hundreds of people, according to a nationwide investigation by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, the US Justice Department announced Wednesday.
According to the department, more than 60 of the defendants are accused of having ties to organised crime, including members of a gang who are charged with using pandemic aid that was allegedly stolen to pay for a murder.
The COVID-19 public health emergency may have ended, but the Justice Department's work to identify and prosecute those who stole pandemic relief funds is far from over, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. "This latest action, involving over 300 defendants and over $830 million in alleged COVID-19 fraud, should send a clear message," Garland said.
More than 300 people were charged as a result of the three-month investigation, which came to an end in July, underscoring how widespread the fraud was. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco presided over a gathering of law enforcement officers that was livestreamed on the Justice Department's website. "We'll stay at it for as long as it takes," she promised.
According to a June analysis by the Associated Press, fraudsters may have stolen more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief funds, and another $123 billion was either wasted or misapplied.
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The majority of the funds came from three significant pandemic relief programmes intended to assist small businesses and unemployed individuals in surviving the economic disruption brought on by the pandemic. According to the most recent Justice Department statistics, close to 3,200 defendants have been accused of COVID-19 aid fraud. Pandemic aid worth about $1.4 billion has been found.
According to court records, alleged members of the Milwaukee gang known as the Wild 100s were involved in the murder-for-hire case mentioned by Justice officials. According to federal prosecutors, they stole millions of dollars in pandemic unemployment benefits and used some of the funds to buy weapons, drugs, and to hire assassins.
The victim in the Wisconsin case is only identified in the federal indictment by the initials N.B., and it is not stated how much of the stolen money was used to pay for the murder.
In addition, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday that it was establishing additional strike forces to join those already in place in California, Florida, and Maryland to combat COVID-19 fraud in Colorado and New Jersey.
Mike Galdo, the department's acting director for COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement, declared, "I don't see an end." I don't see our work coming to an end, based on what we've learned about the extent of the fraud.