![]() Many of the loans-turned-grants were for millions of dollars, public records show.Įxperts say millions of borrowers inflated their numbers of employees or created companies out of whole cloth. Nearly 10 million such loans have already been forgiven. The program authorized banks and other financial institutions to make government-backed loans to businesses, loans that were to be forgiven if the companies spent the money on business expenses. The looting of the Paycheck Protection Program worked differently - and it could be far more lucrative. ![]() Each identity could be worth up to $30,000 in benefits, Horowitz said. The epic swindle of Covid unemployment relief has been carried out by individual criminals or organized crime groups using stolen identities to claim jobless benefits from state workforce agencies disbursing federal funds. The criminal methodology varied depending on the program. … What didn't happen was even minimal checks to make sure that the money was getting to the right people at the right time.” “And, of course, for fraudsters, that's an invitation. “The Small Business Administration, in sending that money out, basically said to people, ‘Apply and sign and tell us that you're really entitled to the money,’” said Horowitz, the chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who oversees Covid relief spending, told "NBC Nightly News" anchor Lester Holt in an exclusive interview that Covid relief programs were structured in ways that made them ripe for plunder. But they acknowledge that programs in 2020 sacrificed security for speed, needlessly. The Biden administration imposed new verification rules last year that administration officials say appear to have made a difference in curbing fraud. Most of the losses are considered unrecoverable, but there is still a chance to stanch the bleeding, because federal officials say $600 billion is still waiting to go out the door. “It is the biggest fraud in a generation.” attorney from Michigan who is now with Honigman LLP. “Nothing like this has ever happened before,” said Matthew Schneider, a former U.S. Attorney's Office, Los AngelesĮven if the highest estimates are inflated, the total fraud in all Covid relief funds amounts to a mind-boggling sum of taxpayer money that could rival the $579 billion in federal funds included in President Joe Biden’s massive 10-year infrastructure spending plan, according to prosecutors, government watchdogs and private experts who are trying to plug the leaks. Prosecutors said Mustafa Qadiri, 38, of Irvine, Calif., used money from the Paycheck Protection Program to buy three cars that cost six figures apiece, including this 2011 Ferrari 458 Italia. The prevalence of Covid relief fraud has been known for some time, but the enormous scope and its disturbing implications are only now becoming clear. And another $80 billion potentially pilfered from a separate Covid disaster relief program. 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 - as NBC News reported last year. They came into their riches by 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. ![]() Also mansions, private jet flights and swanky vacations. history - the theft of hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money intended to help those harmed by the coronavirus pandemic - couldn’t resist purchasing luxury automobiles. Many who participated in what prosecutors are calling the largest fraud in U.S. ![]()
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