Idaho's COVID Fraud Task Force Has a Message for White-collar Criminals: "You Can't Hide"

Josh Hurwit served as a federal prosecutor in the U. S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Idaho for 10 years before he was decided to lead the office in April as Idaho’s most sensible federal prosecutor.

The bureau has noticed many cases of health care fraud at the time, he said.

As with all white-collar crimes, COVID-19 fraud is a difficult knot to untie. Investigators will have to insinuate a paper trail passing through government offices and personal establishments: a trail of bank statements, tax returns, business documents, application forms, database entries and human interactions that in combination allow them to build a case opposite to a defendant.

Hurwit is used to operating in cooperation with other regulatory and law enforcement agencies.

But a type of quick fraud requires a quick team to combat it, Hurwit told The Sun.

That’s why it recently announced the creation of a COVID-19 anti-fraud task force, consisting of 10 agencies.

The National Internal Revenue Service has been conducting at least 840 tax and laundering investigations similar to COVID fraud, totaling more than $3. 1 billion, according to the IRS.

Mark Weymouth, an IRS supervisory special agent, is leading the IRS burglar investigation in Idaho.

Weymouth agents are collaborating with other federal agencies, including the U. S. Department of Justice. In the U. S. , to identify all types of tax-like fraud: cash laundering, fraudulent tax returns, and, recently, fraud similar to COVID-19 pandemic assistance programs.

Weymouth moved into the Boise IRS workplace amid the pandemic. Almost immediately, he began working with Hurwit on a COVID-19 fraud case: an investigation into a human resources executive whose employer, Fry Foods, operated a plant in Ontario, Oregon. — across the Oregon-Idaho border — which experienced a coronavirus outbreak in the spring of 2020 and arranged for workers and their families to be tested for COVID-19.

The investigation found that the manager, Douglas, used the checking program to defraud Fry Foods and spent approximately $70,000 of ill-gotten profits to purchase a boat and trailer. Hurwit described this example as a “COVID check fraud scheme, along with cash. “money laundering, added to a more classic type of embezzlement, an electronic fraud type scheme. “

Wold was sentenced in December to 3 years and five months in federal criminal proceedings for wire fraud, mail fraud and cash laundering.

The Idaho Capital Sun spoke with Hurwit and Weymouth at the U. S. Attorney’s Office in Boise last month to receive more information about the task force’s efforts.

Josh Hurwit: We’ve been working in health care, in terms of fraud, for many years. Even before the pandemic, billing fraud (Medicare and Medicaid), things like that, were on our radar and we went after it.

In addition, we looked at the civil aspect: cases of offenders, but civil enforcement movements (like) in relation to the opioid crisis and overprescribing through some providers to opioid-dependent individuals.

The working group is, in fact, a consequence of our overall efforts against white-collar crime. But given the pervasive nature of what we’re seeing, it made sense to bring all of our spouses’ agencies together in combination (like the IRS, FBI, and Small Business Association) and bring them together in a more formal way, working with some of our prosecutors to review leads, expand cases, and be able to assign the right business spouse to work with us.

We have noticed several cases since the beginning of the pandemic, so we knew that there would be a lot of fraud related to all the aid systems that were implemented.

I don’t think it’s a surprise. But this is true in the country. We’re talking about more than $100 billion in fraud, perhaps, nationally. In Idaho, you know, we’re going to be in the millions of dollars; We already are, with only the five instances that we have been able to present publicly.

Having this organization of 10 agencies, each with a little experience, is helping us solve the problem.

Idaho Capital Sun: What kind of referral did you receive?

Hurwit: We’ve noticed other types of fraud. We even have some of the lesser-known support systems that have been targeted, for example, rental assistance, other housing assistance systems, with the farm program, the Coronavirus Farm Assistance Program, necessarily as well known as (the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP). We’ve noticed signs of fraud in all of those systems.

Different systems have other control agencies, and we must work with them to look at fraud indicators. This is how we generate leads, and then we get leads from members of netpaintings, monetary institutions, and other businesses that have been victimized in some way.

Mark Weymouth: And you can end up with other crimes in most cases, which lead to money laundering, right?Someone can also simply create a fake business, calling a genuine user but not theirs, and then applying for a loan through it. We have noticed this in other cases across the country. There are only a multitude of crimes that may also only be related to such investigations.

Hurwit: We have several ongoing investigations. To give you a concept of scope, we’re just getting started: we’ve already billed five cases. And we have many avenues that we’re running on, and we think these paintings will continue for several years to come.

Le Soleil: For several years, even if it has already been extracted?

Weymouth: It’s a historic crime, isn’t it? Because they already made the money. And if they abused it, or didn’t use it properly, for the purposes of the loan, we’re going to locate it one way or another. We take this type of fraud very seriously.

You can’t hide it. If you took the cash for your workers and bought a luxury car, you did something wrong. We will look into it.

The Sun: How are those cases different from other cases you’re prosecuting?

Hurwit: Many of our instances are fast. For example, a drug case, for example: someone is stopped on the side of a road and their trunk contains pounds of methamphetamine. We know that a crime has been committed. And to initiate the procedure with monetary crimes, in general, we want to understand: is there a crime, or does it have some other explanation?And then: was it committed with intent, or does it have some other explanation?

We see conditions where criminals, you know, invent businesses to get the (pandemic) loans and evidently they may not be able to spend them for the right purposes, because there is no business there.

We charged a case last week that concerned such acts. The accusation is that in 3 events he implemented loans for a business that existed.

The Sun: Are there exclusives about Idaho, in the types of fraud you see here when it comes to pandemic relief?

Weymouth: (Compared to the more populous states), the numbers are a little smaller. The amounts of fraud are smaller. That doesn’t make it any less obvious. Possibly we would have a case in some other state where it’s $10 million. . . And, here, it can also be only a part. It’s still millions of dollars, it doesn’t stop the case from being any less important. This is cash that was intended for American personnel and small businesses. And, perhaps because of a small amount, others may not have won those relief funds.

The Sun: Overview, what do you expect with this working group?

Hurwit: We hope to look for as many viable and cost-effective instances as we do, and recover the budget that was stolen, essentially, from taxpayers and systems that were designated to help small businesses, staff, and tenants during a critical time. Difficult time.

This kind of thief habit is unacceptable; However, it’s a little more evident, to me, when we’re in a national crisis that the pandemic has presented, we all had to come together to help each other, to get through it. And some made the decision to take credit for it and actually slap everyone. So we need to send that message and get the money back for taxpayers.

The Sun: The pandemic has become politicized. How do you deal with this when prosecuting similar fraud?

Hurwit: We technique our paintings in an apolitical way. We take a set of facts that merit investigation and track where it leads. We make decisions based on facts, and if there is political noise about it, it doesn’t affect us.

Weymouth: For the most part, the types of instances that the COVID Fraud Task Force handles have nothing to do with politics. And if politics comes into play, (agents) talk about it from the standpoint, “Can you be?” And if they can’t be impartial, if they feel like they’re being influenced in one way or another, then we have another case employee running.

It’s the same as if it’s your neighbor and you’re investigating, well, that officer is going to investigate the case, right?We have a very open discussion about this to make sure that doesn’t happen.

But, really, those kinds of cases, there is nothing political about them.

Hurwit: Just like that, there’s no explanation for why this task force should be politicized. That is my conviction. We are prosecuting other people who have committed fraud and all have stolen cash from us.

Weymouth: Is that money going into a booth to go to other people who are supposedly your employees?I don’t care about politics. It is simply illegal.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

TRUSTED SUPPORT NEWS.

by Audrey Dutton, capital of Idaho Sunday, November 10, 2022