NEW: The Secret Service says it has recovered $286 million in Covid relief funds that were meant for small businesses but were siphoned off by fraudsters using stolen or fake identities.
The Secret Service said Friday that it has recovered $286 million in Covid relief funds that were meant for small businesses but were siphoned off by fraudsters using thousands of stolen or fake identities.
The conspirators used fake identities to apply for Covid relief funds known as Economic Injury Disaster Loans , and created 15,000 accounts at Green Dot Bank, an online institution in Texas, to try to access the money using debit cards. Green Dot notified the Secret Service when it discovered suspicious accounts, and the EIDL money was returned to the Small Business Administration, which had administered the relief funds.
Assistant Special Agent in Charge Roy Dotson, the lead pandemic fraud investigator for the Secret Service, said at a news conference Friday that there are"many actors" and a"myriad of potential suspects behind the fraud," and believes there could be domestic and international co-conspirators."Investigations are ongoing," said Dotson, who added that pandemic fraud is"one of the largest financial crime investigations we’ve ever undertaken.
As federal and state governments raced to get money out the door to keep the economy afloat, many safeguards were overlooked. Estimates of the total amount of fraudulently obtained federal,
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