The Secret Service says over 100 billion was stolen from COVID-19 relief programs intended to help small businesses and stolen unemployment benefits.
As of last week there are over 900 active criminal investigations across the country in every single state. The Secret Service says for those who fraudulently collected a PPP loan or an EIDL loan or unemployment in the last few years, the secret service fraud recovery department and the entire force of the federal government is coming after that money. The Secret Service says they will use all the tools, surveillance personnel and anything else to get the money back and punish those who stole from the program.
The majority of the fraud came from people inappropriately collecting unemployment benefits. The Labor Department says 87 billion dollars were stolen from unemployment.
The Secret Service has arrested 100 people and seized more than 1.2 billion dollars to SBA and unemployment. Along with another 2.3 billion dollars of fraudulent transactions by simply reversing the fund deposits.
This is on top of the 95 criminal cases and another 150 people who are being prosecuted by the Department of Justice over 75 million dollars in fraudulently obtained money from the PPP funds.
The Secret Service says this money that was fraudulently stolen was being used to buy real estate and other luxury items.
These investigations are ongoing according to the Secret Service.
