U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco convene the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Fraud Enforcement Task Force at the Justice Department in Washington, U.S., March 10, 2022.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Federal law enforcement authorities charged hundreds of people in a nationwide sweep targeting more than $830 million in Covid-19 fraud, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.
The DOJ filed criminal charges against 371 individuals and recovered $231 million in stolen money, the department said in a release. More than 60 of the defendants had connections to violent crime and transnational criminal networks.
In one case, 30 members of a street gang in Wisconsin allegedly used money from an unemployment fraud scheme to solicit murder for hire and purchase firearms and drugs, said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco at a roundtable meeting of law enforcement officials Wednesday.
In another case, four people were charged in an international pandemic relief fraud and money laundering scheme involving Nigeria, Monaco said.
Many of the individuals targeted in the sweep are accused of fraudulently applying for assistance through the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans used to support small businesses during the pandemic, according to a DOJ press release.
A government watchdog estimated in June that fraudsters may have stolen more than $200 billion in loans intended for struggling businesses, or 17% of the $1.2 trillion disbursed in total.
The nationwide sweep involved three strike teams in California, Maryland and South Florida that cooperated with 50 U.S. attorneys and more than a dozen law enforcement partners over the course of three months from May to July.
The DOJ is setting up two additional strike teams in Colorado and New Jersey as part of the federal government’s ongoing efforts to recover stolen pandemic relief money, Monaco said.
“We will seek judicial orders requiring convicted defendants to pay back every stolen dollar and we have 20 years to realize those recoveries,” Monaco said.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland set up a task force in May 2021 to go after fraudsters who stole Covid relief money. The group’s work has led to criminal charges against more than 3,000 people and the seizure of more than $1.4 billion in stolen Covid relief money so far, according to the DOJ.