In an effort to get back billions of dollars lost to COVID-19 related fraud, the U.S. Secret Service is tasking a senior official to work with law enforcement agencies across the country on the issue.
The agency's point person, Roy Dotson, has spent almost three decades working in law enforcement and will now work with big banks to get back stolen COVID-19 recovery funds. Dotson will also work with the Justice Department to help crackdown on the scammers and see they are prosecuted.
Dotson spoke with CNN and shared that they are looking to "maximize our investigative impact" and "recover as much as we can" in stolen money.
The mission has already led to the seizure of more than $1.2 billion and a return of more than $2.3 billion in fraudulently taken money, with 100 people being arrested.
Still, Dotson, who is the assistant special agent in charge in the Secret Service's Jacksonville field office, and the agency have more than 900 active criminal investigations to go.
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The investigations are looking at COVID-19 related financial fraud, and Dotson shared he wants them to have a more significant impact.
This means that Dotson wants to not only seize big tranches of stolen funds, but put prolific scammers behind bars with the assistance of the Justice Department.
"I've never seen anything like this in my career as far as the magnitude and the scope," Dotson said about the financial fraud he is seeing.
The mission is an effort by U.S. law enforcement officials to prosecute criminal groups that have fleeced programs for unemployment insurance and small business loans meant to help those struggling from the pandemic.
The groups took advantage of the CARES relief package that had roughly $2 trillion in money to help those in need through unemployment benefits and loans for millions of Americans by fraudulently applying for aid.
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A former FBI analyst, Crane Hassold, said that the CARES Act was "essentially a scammer's World Series and Super Bowl rolled up into one," CNN reported.
"Using platforms like Telegram or WhatsApp, scammers openly share techniques and best practices about how to most effectively submit fraudulent pandemic-related claims in channels dedicated to the topic," Hassold told CNN.
But one thing to come out of this is the Secret Service's ability to identify prominent perpetrators of fraud.
"We've learned a lot as investigators on what to look for the next time, maybe ways to be even faster [in] response," Dotson said to CNN.
Now law enforcement officials will prepare for the next spike in COVID-related scams like epidemiologists waiting for a spike in cases.
