The Justice Department says 80 people have been charged in a coordinated crackdown on alleged fraud involving COVID-era loan programs, with the cases representing roughly $245 million in claimed losses.

Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the figures Monday, saying prosecutors assembled the cases in less than two months with help from 40 U.S. Attorneys’ offices.

“The American people were robbed, and they deserve to know,” Blanche said in a video released by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The announcement covers charges filed between June 12 and August 31. The department has not yet released a single consolidated case list, so the $245 million figure reflects the combined alleged losses across separate prosecutions.

Among the examples Blanche highlighted was a defendant accused of trying to obtain approximately $55 million in pandemic loans by submitting applications for businesses that prosecutors say were bogus.

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The cases are allegations, not convictions. Each defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court, and the amounts identified by prosecutors may include attempted losses as well as money that was actually paid out.

The loans at issue came from programs Congress created during the pandemic, including the Paycheck Protection Program and the COVID Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. Both were administered through the Small Business Administration to help businesses cover payroll and operating expenses during the emergency.

The Government Accountability Office found that, through the end of 2024, the Justice Department had publicly announced criminal fraud-related charges involving pandemic relief programs against at least 3,096 defendants. The congressional watchdog also counted more than 650 civil settlements and judgments totaling over $500 million.

GAO said investigators have faced unusually difficult conditions because the relief programs were created and expanded quickly during a national emergency. In many cases, borrowers self-certified information while agencies processed enormous volumes of applications under pressure to move money rapidly.

The watchdog’s review covered fraud allegations tied to unemployment benefits, small-business loans, tax credits and other relief. It also stressed that an allegation of fraud is not the same as a final finding and that improper payments can include mistakes as well as intentional deception.

Monday’s criminal enforcement announcement was accompanied by a separate Small Business Administration action involving 870,000 borrowers flagged for suspected fraud connected to approximately $39 billion in pandemic loans.

An administrative suspension can prevent a borrower from receiving future SBA-backed assistance, but it is not a criminal conviction. The criminal charges announced by Blanche and the broader SBA review are separate legal processes.

The Justice Department has pursued pandemic-loan cases for years through U.S. Attorneys’ offices and its COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force. The Justice Department described a data-driven enforcement effort focused on Paycheck Protection Program fraud, Economic Injury Disaster Loan fraud, unemployment-insurance fraud and other misuse of emergency relief.

Its task-force report said investigators were using financial records, application data and information shared across agencies to identify suspected schemes. The department also created strike-force teams to pursue cases involving large alleged losses, overseas actors, violent offenders and people accused of exploiting more than one relief program.

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The report documented criminal prosecutions alongside civil enforcement, seizures and forfeitures. Those remedies serve different purposes: criminal cases can lead to prison sentences, while civil cases and forfeiture actions can be used to recover money or property even when the legal path differs.

Blanche said the latest coordinated cases show that the federal government is still reviewing how pandemic funds were obtained and where the money went, years after the programs closed.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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