The U.S. government loses nearly $1 trillion in emergency relief funds annually, according to experts. In a “60 Minutes” interview Monday night, Audient Group founder and former Government Accountability Office executive Linda Miller alleged that international crime rings defraud American taxpayers of billions of dollars every year.
“I believe the government is losing between $550 billion and about $750 billion a year — we’re coming up close to the $1 trillion amount — [that’s] lost every year to fraud,” Miller stated. She explained, “What we’re really talking about is nation-state actors, we’re talking about organized crime rings, we’re talking about using vast amounts of stolen American identities to monetize them for criminal activity.”
Fraud was rampant during the COVID-19 era, Miller explained. “I mean, it was like they threw money in the air and just let people run around and grab it. The most egregious part is that a lot of the people who stole that money were foreign, adversarial nation-states,” she said, estimating that over $1 trillion in COVID-19 relief funding was stolen through fraud.
However, she warned that security measures need to be increased even though the COVID-19 era has ended. “One of the things I found really disheartening is, since then, I’ve talked to some folks who said, ‘Well, that was just the pandemic. We don’t have to worry about it anymore.’ Was it? No,” Miller said. She added, “It’s whack-a-mole and these guys are paying close attention. They’re seeing where better controls are being put in place, and then they’re going to where the controls still haven’t been improved.”
Miller identified disaster relief funds as a top target for fraudsters. “When a disaster happens in the country, the fraud actors see where it’s coming, they look at the zip codes and they begin buying stolen identities so that they can begin applying for disaster loans, disaster grants on behalf of stolen identities,” she explained. FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Bryan Vorndran confirmed, “All of our personally identifiable information — name, date of birth, former address, and social security number — is available on the dark net and can likely be purchased.”
Vorndran explained that much of the fraud being committed against the U.S. is sponsored by China and other nations hostile to America. He cited one case last year where the U.S. identified a $6 billion loss in COVID-era unemployment funds. The FBI agent confirmed that, unfortunately, “very little” of the money lost to fraud will ever be recovered. “These are arguably digital gangs in the 21st century that are built off of having safe haven status, meaning their governments are not going to interrupt their activity even if it’s illegal,” he said, pointing to foreign governments that sponsor or allow large-scale fraud operations in an effort to cripple the U.S. He added, “I believe that there are sustained campaigns across this globe that are very well resourced, with a goal of causing damage to the United States.”
Miller noted the fact that billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are doing more than other agencies have to combat and prevent fraud. “Elon Musk coming out and saying there is a huge amount of fraud — I welcome that message completely because finally someone is actually saying this,” she quipped. “When I watch DOGE today, I do see some hints that they are addressing the right issues,” she added. However, she advised the bloat-slashing agency not to conflate fraud with wasteful spending. “Fraud is willful deception,” Miller said.
She continued, “Often, you may not agree with what USAID does. You may not want to be investing American dollars in foreign fertilizer, for example. You may think that’s the wrong thing to be spending money on, but that’s not fraud.” She continued, “I really think fraud is not a political issue. This is mom and apple pie stuff, we all agree that bad actors should not be stealing American taxpayer dollars. … We see the adversary not as Republicans or Democrats, but as foreign adversarial nation states and organized crime rings.” Miller added, “I believe that there [are] opportunities for DOGE to save a lot of significant money if they focus on the right things, if they focus on real fraud.”
According to the Government Accountability Office and the FBI, up to $135 billion in unemployment insurance, at least $135 billion in economic injury disaster loans, and nearly $65 billion in paycheck protection program funds were stolen through fraud during the COVID-19 era. Thousands of individuals have been charged by the Department of Justice with fraud-related crimes over the past several years.
“I think it’s safe to say future historians will make entire careers on writing about the failures of the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter told The Washington Stand. “More than five years removed from the start of the pandemic, we now know masking, closures, social distancing, and vaccinations did little to nothing to stop the spread of COVID-19. Now, we know the government’s prescription to prevent the economy from collapsing during COVID-19 not only did not work but led to the largest instance of fraud in American history, that we know of at least. We are a country $36 trillion in debt. We cannot afford to have a trillion dollars lost to fraud and abuse.”
