“We are going to go after the criminals who stole billions of relief money meant for small businesses and millions of Americans,” Biden said during his March 1 address. “I am announcing the Justice Department will name a chief prosecutor for pandemic fraud.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the multi-agency task force last May. The task force has already moved forward with multiple cases and investigations, looking into fraud with the Paycheck Protection Program, the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, unemployment insurance programs and other Covid health care-related fraud, the news release said.
For example, through the department’s work on cases involving PPP and EIDL fraud, 500 defendants have been charged in over 340 cases, the release said. These cases amounted to more than $700 million in alleged intended losses.
The chief prosecutor role will expand the task force’s efforts, according to the announcement, particularly through the Strike Teams that Chambers will coordinate.
“We are receiving an extraordinary amount of data from our state workforce agency partners,” Chambers said in a statement. “This data holds the key to identifying and prosecuting certain types of fraud, including unemployment insurance fraud. Our Strike Teams will enhance the department’s existing efforts and will include analysts and data scientists to review data, agents to investigate the cases, and prosecutors and trial attorneys to bring charges and try the cases. Again, this is on top of the great work our folks in the field are already doing.”