There are currently 500 people working on pandemic-fraud cases across the offices of 21 inspectors general, plus investigators from the F.B.I., the Secret Service, the Postal Inspection Service and the Internal Revenue Service, reports the New York Times.
The roughly $5 trillion in federal COVID-relief money approved in 2020 and 2021, with few strings and no oversight, has resulted in one of the largest frauds in American history, with billions of dollars stolen by thousands of people.
About 50 agents in a Small Business Administration office are sorting through two million potentially fraudulent loan applications.