Over the past three years, the federal government distributed more than $4.2 trillion in aid connected to the COVID-19 pandemic. More than $400 billion of it—nearly one in every $10 spent—was either wasted or stolen, according to a new report.
And that figure is likely to grow, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday, "as investigators dig deeper into thousands of potential schemes." Already, prosecutors have charged more than 2,230 defendants with pandemic-related fraud crimes, the A.P. reports. They'll be busy for years to come, sorting through what Mike Galdo, the Justice Department's acting director for COVID-19 fraud enforcement, calls "an unprecedented amount of fraud."
