The Small Business Administration’s inspector general’s report was released on Tuesday. In the document, it states that the Paycheck Protection and Economic Disaster Loan Program At least 17 percent went to scammers.
According to Hannibal Mike Weir, the inspector general leading the investigation, in order to quickly implement programs intended to offset the negative economic effects of the pandemic, authorities have relaxed monitoring measures and, in some cases, suspended controls that could have prevented violations. At the same time, the promise of “easy money” and the “prey” offered greatly attracted scammers to the programs, the federal agency’s report says.
At the beginning of June, the Associated Press news agency published a summary estimate, according to which $280 billion of all financial resources allocated in the United States during the coronavirus pandemic went to fraudsters, in addition to another $123 billion from the American budget. It was poorly or wastefully spent in connection with the pandemic. Federal authorities have brought charges in 2,230 cases of financial abuse related to the sources of the coronavirus outbreak, and thousands of investigations are still ongoing.
The sheer scale of the fraud is not surprising, as there have been reports before about how much support for small businesses has led to abuse. Even during a pandemic, in December 2021, the amount stolen from the US Federal Government’s Pandemic Relief Fund was estimated at one hundred billion dollars. The latest news shows that it is an even bigger abuse. The investigation was conducted by the United States Secret Service (USSS), the criminal law enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security.
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