In one of the largest national crackdowns on fraud targeting federal coronavirus aid, the Justice Department on Wednesday said it had brought 718 law enforcement actions in connection with the alleged theft of more than $836 million.

The vast array of criminal charges and other sanctions — part of a federal sweep conducted over the past three months — reflected the ongoing, costly work in Washington to recover stolen pandemic funds roughly three years after the peak of the public health crisis.

  • @[email protected]
    7•1 year ago

    The answer is banks. Banks helped them get money and it was more profitable for the banks to assist wealthier customers first.

    • @AttackBunny
      6•1 year ago

      Oh, yeah, I totally know WHY it happened. It guess I worded it wrong. Why was it allowed to happen would be a more accurate question, but I know the answer to that too. Trump and government as a whole being bought and paid for.

      • @dogslayeggs
        9•1 year ago

        Republicans specifically refused to sign anything if it had any sort of oversight. They would only sign something that had no government oversight. We knew from day 1 exactly what would happen.

    • @Wrench
      4•1 year ago

      I have a friend who was working at a bank for small business loans. He said it was a massive clusterfuck. There were no instructions, no one knew what to do, so they first just started gathering info so they could put the PPP applications when they did have direction, then that was all useless or something when the rules finally came in, and then it was all gone.

      Definitely a mix of corruption for inside tracks, and bad communication which made prioritizing the largest applications first while everyone honest was scrambling to try to get people help in the chaos.