Increased funding for forgery protection is a demand made by the DOJ and politicians.
The Biden administration’s Department of Justice ( DOJ) has charged more than 3, 400 people with federal crimes and recovered more than$ 1.4 billion in stolen COVID- 19 relief funds during the last three years, according to a newly- published report.
The estimated$ 283 billion that authorities believe cybercriminals collected from the pandemic reduction program under then-Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump only scratches the surface.
The DOJ praised the CFETF’s efforts in the most recent report, claiming that its” complete program” to identify fraud, recover assets, and hold liars accountable helped to locate and recover the stolen money.
That system included the development of five legal COVID- 19 fraud protection” strike causes” based in California, Colorado, Maryland, New Jersey, and Florida. According to the DOJ, all were given dedicated funding to fight epidemic scams.
The first of its kind” National Unemployment Insurance Fraud Task Force,” which draws inspiration from condition labor organizations and the Small Business Administration, was also included in the report.
Related Tales
Elsewhere in the past three years, the CFETF has set up a” Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence” which uses” sophisticated data products: to detect and deter pandemic fraud across multiple government agencies”, according to the report.
Task Force Faces” Many Challenges”
The work force supports efforts to find and prosecute the country’s and foreign criminal actors, as well as aiding agencies tasked with administering reduction programs to avoid scams, among other things, by enhancing and incorporating existing cooperation mechanisms, identifying resources and methods to find false actors and their schemes, and sharing and utilizing information and insights gained from previous enforcement efforts, the report stated.
While the CFETF has made” major improvement” in identifying, investigating, and punishing COVID- 19 reduction software fraudsters, officials noted that a substantial amount of work remains in the face of “numerous challenges”.
The CFETF noted in its report that some investigative targets are increasingly arguing that the task force’s conduct violates the statute of limitations, which leaves the organization’s ability to hold the individuals accountable.
Democrats Propose Increased Funding
In response, both the DOJ and the White House are urging Congress to pass the newly passed Fraud Prevention and Recovery Act, which they claim will allow the task force to continue.
Senate Democrats, including Senate Homeland Security &, Governor Gary Peters (D-Mich. ), Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill. ), and Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore. ), said the measure would” crackdown on systemic pandemic fraud across government programs and help victims of identity theft recover,” according to a statement from the White House.
The bill includes proposals to triple the amount of money spent on civil fraud cases from$ 200,000 to$ 400,000, as well as triple the funding for the prosecutorial COVID-19 fraud enforcement strike forces.
The White House claims that the measure will provide the task force with$ 75 million to develop a Social Security number verification system aimed at preventing identity theft. Additionally, the measure would increase the statute of limitations on pandemic unemployment insurance fraud from five years to ten.
” The time has come to make sure law enforcement has what it needs to finish the job,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in a statement. For our prosecutors to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in additional fraud proceeds, bring remaining offenders to justice, and disrupt criminal networks that continue to victimize our citizens, the statute of limitations must be extended and the necessary funding and data analytic tools secured.
