More than 1,000 more people have pleaded guilty or been convicted on federal charges of defrauding the myriad COVID-19 relief systems Congress established early in the pandemic. And more than six hundred Americans and entities face federal fraud charges.
But that’s just the beginning, according to investigators who will testify Wednesday before a congressional committee, as House Republicans usher in what they promise will be competitive oversight of President Joe Biden’s administration.
The House Oversight and Accountability Committee is holding its first hearing in the new Congress on fraud and waste in federal spending during a pandemic. He was president
“We owe it to other Americans to be kind to the largest theft of U. S. taxpayer dollars in history,” said committee chairman Rep. James Comer, R-D-Kentucky.
The Government Accountability Office is expected to tell the committee that the number of suspected fraud cases will increase in the coming months. For example, the Small Business Administration’s inspector general has more than 500 ongoing investigations into lending systems designed to help businesses with operating expenses during the pandemic. The Department of Labor’s inspector general continues to open at least one hundred UI fraud investigations each week.
The GAO said the more than 1,000 convictions similar to COVID-19 relief fraud are a measure of its magnitude. It’s unclear how much money was lost to the fraud, the GAO also said, but reported in December that an extrapolation of the Labor Department’s knowledge would recommend more than $60 billion in fraudulent unemployment insurance bills during the pandemic. But the GAO also cautioned that such extrapolation has inherent limitations and deserves to be interpreted with caution.
Still, lawmakers are eager to determine how many flights have taken place and what can be done to avoid them in long-term emergencies.
“We want to find out where that cash went, how much it ended up in the hands of scammers or ineligible participants, and what needs to be done to keep that from happening again,” Comer said.
Twenty inspectors general are running collaboratively to investigate pandemic relief spending. Michael Horowitz, who chairs a congressional committee created in March 2020 to lead oversight of COVID-19 spending, is scheduled to testify.
In his prepared remarks, Horowitz said the committee issued a fraud alert this week related to the use of more than 69,000 questionable Social Security numbers to obtain $5. 4 billion in pandemic loans and grants.
David Smith, deputy director of the U. S. Secret Service’s Bureau of InvestigationIn the U. S. , he also testifies and predicts that efforts to steal assets and blame criminals for pandemic fraud will continue for years.