More than $200 billion may have been stolen from two large pandemic-relief initiatives, according to new estimates from a federal watchdog investigating federally funded programs designed to help small businesses survive the worst public health crisis in more than a hundred years. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)
Mathew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
Important Takeaways:
- Gangs used pandemic aid to rake in money for crimes; weak screening opened big opportunity
- The Insane Crip Gang was a fearsome presence on Long Island in New York, blamed for two dozen attempted murders, at least three successful slayings and a host of other crimes.
- In recent years, the group started funding its activities in a most unusual way: by stealing pandemic benefits.
- The gang worked up a fraud manual to help members fabricate businesses, submit pandemic loan applications to the Small Business Administration, defeat the screening software meant to weed out bogus claims and collect the cash.
- Gang members also rushed to apply for unemployment benefits. California’s notoriously frail program was a particular target.
- During a single month in 2020, Insane Crip Gang (ICG) members managed to bilk the state out of $200,000 in bogus unemployment payouts.
- Authorities say taxpayers gave money to fuel the gangs’ activities.
- Two of the three big pandemic assistance programs involved small-business lending and enhanced unemployment benefits. Authorities are still struggling to put a dollar figure on the fraud but have indicated it runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
- Those relief programs are over, but the gangs have moved on to other government programs such as food stamps and unemployment insurance, said Haywood Talcove, CEO of government at LexisNexis Risk Solutions.
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