At least $100 billion in pandemic relief funds designated to help small businesses and the unemployed were stolen through fraudulent claims according to the Secret Service, the Associated Press reports.
Roy Dotson, the agency’s national pandemic fraud recovery coordinator, said the estimate is based on information from the Secret Service, the Department of Labor and the Small Business Administration. The calculation comes to about 3% of the $3.4 trillion dispersed in the various programs implemented since March 2020.
The Secret Service has either recovered or confiscated about $3.5 billion in investigations, and it has 900 active investigations underway. In separate investigations, the Justice Department has prosecuted more than 150 defendants for recovery fund fraud, recovery about $75 million.