Record Scam: U.S. Government loses over $100B or N50Trillion to crooks

Uncle Sam a.k.a U.S. Government

Uncle Sam a.k.a U.S. Government

The United States Government, also known as Uncle Sam, has been swindled big time by local and international crooks, the FBI said.

At least $100 billion, about N50 trillion, has been stolen from COVID-19 relief programmes set up by U.S. government in 2020 to help businesses and people who lost their jobs due to the pandemic.

The estimate is based on Secret Service cases and data from the Labour Department and the Small Business Administration, said Roy Dotson, the agency’s national pandemic fraud recovery coordinator, in an interview.

According to an ABC report, the Secret Service didn’t include COVID-19 fraud cases prosecuted by the Justice Department.

While roughly 3% of the $3.4 trillion dispersed, the amount stolen from pandemic benefits programs shows “the sheer size of the pot is enticing to the criminals,” Dotson said.

Most of that figure comes from unemployment fraud.

The Labour Department reported about $87 billion in unemployment benefits could have been paid improperly, with a significant portion attributable to fraud.

The Secret Service said it has seized more than $1.2 billion while investigating unemployment insurance and loan fraud and has returned more than $2.3 billion of fraudulently obtained funds by working with financial partners and states to reverse transactions.

The Secret Service says it has more than 900 active criminal investigations into pandemic fraud, with cases in every state, and 100 people have been arrested so far.

The Justice Department said last week that its fraud section had prosecuted over 150 defendants in more than 95 criminal cases and had seized over $75 million in cash proceeds derived from fraudulently obtained Paycheck Protection Program funds, as well as numerous real estate properties and luxury items purchased with the proceeds.

One of the best-known programs created through the March 2020 CARES Act, PPP offered low-interest, forgivable loans to small businesses struggling to meet payroll and other expenses during pandemic-related shutdowns.

Law enforcement early in the pandemic focused on fraud related to personal protective equipment, the Secret Service said.

Authorities have now prioritized the exploitation of pandemic-related relief because the federal funding through the CARES Act attracted the attention of individuals and organized criminal networks worldwide.

“Can we stop fraud? Will we? No, but I think we can definitely prosecute those that need to be prosecuted and we can do our best to recover as much fraudulent pandemic funds that we can,” said Dotson, who is the Secret Service’s assistant special agent in charge of the agency’s field office in Jacksonville, Florida.

Some of the scammers:

According to New York Post, two high profile athletes have already been cuffed for the crime.

Related News

US Olympic speedskater Allison Marie Baver is accused of ripping off $10 million.

The 41-year-old Baver — who medaled with the US women’s 3,000-meter relay team during the 2010 Vancouver games — was brought up last week on money laundering charges and eight counts of making a false statement to a bank after allegedly defrauding an estimated $10 million of COVID funds, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah.

She applied for eight Paycheck Protection Program loans in April 2020, seeking the $10 million for her production company, Allison Baver Entertainment, which she founded in 2019, two years into her skating retirement.

There is also the case of former New York Jets wide receiver Kenbrell Thompkins.

He pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized access device fraud — the theft of banking or credit cards — and one count of aggravated identity fraud last October.

He allegedly stole the identities of several Florida residents to apply for COVID unemployment benefits while in California. Thompkins was then awarded $300,000 in debit cards under false pretenses, which were sent to a South Florida address he was using, according to the Associated Press.

Also Leon Miles, a 51-year-old Brooklyn man, was arrested for collecting about $2 million in PPP funds that allegedly fueled his lust for luxury cars, according to federal prosecutors.

After the forgivable loan of $1,904,593 hit Miles’ personal bank account, he withdrew hundreds of thousands in the upcoming days, spending $250,000 on a 2020 white Bentley Continental that he posed with on Instagram and $100,000 on a 2020 Cadillac Escalade, the prosecution alleged.

There have also been plenty of “average Joe” perps getting busted after spending their lavish relief dough on trivial purchases, such as flashy cars or rare, five-figure Pokémon cards.

A young group of eight in Brooklyn was indicted for fraud, after posting tell tale signs on social media.

Bryan Abraham, 18, Carlos Vazquez, 20, Angel Cabrera, 18, Gianni Stewart, 19, Andre Ruddock, 25, Seth Golding, 18, Armani Miller, 24, and Johan Santos, 19, were indicted in federal court last May for conspiracy to commit access-device fraud, by allegedly stealing $2M in COVID funds.

Some Nigerians have also been arrested in connection with the COVID scam.

Apart from the case of Abidemi Rufai, a former aide of Governor Dapo Abiodun, a Nigerian woman in Houston Texas, Lola Kasali has been convicted for COVID fraud.

She will know in February 2022 how long she will spend in jail, for filing fraudulent applications seeking $4million in COVID-19 loan for hair extension business.

The jury convicted Kasali for defrauding the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) of over $1.9 million in loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration (SBA) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Lola Shalewa Barbara Kasali, 24, submitted two fraudulent loan applications to two different lenders on behalf of her companies, Lola’s Level and Charm Hair Extensions.

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