DOJ appoints prosecutor for pandemic relief fund fraud

The Division of Justice on Thursday introduced the appointment of a director for COVID-19 fraud enforcement who will lead the division’s investigations into fraud associated to greater than $8 billion in pandemic reduction funds.

Affiliate Deputy Lawyer Basic Kevin Chambers will serve within the new place. He can be accountable for the DOJ’s efforts, which have to date led to legal fees towards greater than 1,000 defendants, with alleged losses exceeding $1.1 billion, in line with a information launch.

Along with the seizure of greater than $1 billion in Financial Harm Catastrophe Mortgage proceeds, there are additionally 240 civil investigations into greater than 1,800 people and entities for alleged misconduct concerning COVID-19 reduction loans totaling greater than $6 billion.

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“With a chief pandemic prosecutor now in place, the Division of Justice will escalate our efforts to crack down on dangerous actors — and take all efforts to grab reduction cash stolen from American households, companies and colleges over the past administration and ship it again to the American individuals,” mentioned President Biden, who promised such a prosecutor throughout his current State of the Union handle.

“We’re receiving a unprecedented quantity of information from our state workforce company companions,” Chambers defined in a press release. “This information holds the important thing to figuring out and prosecuting sure forms of fraud, together with unemployment insurance coverage fraud. Our strike groups will improve the division’s present efforts and can embody analysts and information scientists to overview information, brokers to research the instances and prosecutors and trial attorneys to deliver fees and check out the instances. Once more, that is on high of the nice work our of us within the discipline are already doing.

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“The Justice Division stays dedicated to utilizing each accessible federal instrument — together with legal, civil, and administrative actions — to fight and stop COVID-19 associated fraud,” mentioned Lawyer Basic Merrick B. Garland. “We’ll proceed to carry accountable those that search to take advantage of the pandemic for private acquire, to guard susceptible populations and to safeguard the integrity of taxpayer-funded packages.”

Lawyer Basic Merrick Garland steps away from the rostrum after talking at a information convention on the Justice Division in Washington Nov. 8, 2021. 
(AP Picture/Andrew Harnik)

President Biden took a shot at his predecessor in his press launch saying Chambers’ appointment, alleging that the Trump administration “persistently undermined the watchdogs whose job it was to maintain reduction funds from being wasted or abused.”

“The watchdogs are again,” Biden promised.