Justice Department charges hundreds over COVID-19 fraud

The Justice Department on Wednesday said that it recently charged 371 people for allegedly stealing COVID-19 relief funds. U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said that the department had recovered more than $200 million out of more than $830 million involved in the charges, and had secured convictions or guilty pleas from 119 of the individuals charged.

What sort of fraud was this about? The Justice Department said many of the charges in the sweep involved COVID-19 pandemic unemployment benefits fraud or fraudulently obtaining funds from the Small Business Administration. The Department in 2021 assembled a COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to investigate these incidents. Enforcement activities so far have totaled charges against more than 3,000 individuals and the seizure of $1.4 billion in stolen funds, said Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Dig deeper: Listen to Emma Freire’s report on The World and Everything in It podcast about counting the cost of the COVID-19 pandemic.