Foreign Criminals Got Up to $300 Billion From America’s COVID Relief Program

 By Hans Bader | June 11, 2021 | 11:43am EDT

 

 

 

A dollar sign is featured on a black background. (Photo credit: YouTube/Javier Velasco Barrero)

Foreign criminals appear to have received around $300 billion from America's pandemic unemployment funds. Such handouts were paid for with government borrowing that has increased America's national debt to a point where it is now much bigger than our economy.

The New York Post reports that half of America's pandemic unemployment money may have been stolen, with foreign scammers collecting most of the stolen money:

Fraudsters may have plundered as much as half of the unemployment benefits that the U.S. pumped out in a hurry during the pandemic.

Blake Hall, CEO of ID.me, a fraud prevention service, told Axios that the US has lost more than $400 billion to crooked claims.

The U.S. may have been robbed of as much as half of all money given out through unemployment benefits during the pandemic, Hall told the outlet.

Haywood Talcove, the CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions, estimated that most of the stolen money, at least 70 percent, probably ended up outside the U.S., according to Axios.

Much of the pilfered funds likely went to criminal syndicates in China, Nigeria, Russia and elsewhere, he said, according to the outlet. “These groups are definitely backed by the state,” Talcove told Axios.

A lot of the money was also likely stolen by U.S. street gangs, who have been taking a greater share of the stolen funds in recent months.

 https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/hans-bader/foreign-criminals-got-300-billion-americas-covid-relief-program