Nate Mendell spoke to the Boston Globe about the Justice Department’s crackdown on pandemic-related fraud in a monumental effort to recover billions of taxpayer dollars that were handed out with few safeguards, which has resulted in federal charges against more than 65 people in cases involving a total loss of about $32 million in Massachusetts.
According to Nate, the government’s emphasis “was on speed, not security” as it pushed out $800 billion in small-business loans in less than a year under one program to deal with the devastating impact of the pandemic.
“As soon as the nature and scope of government spending became apparent, U.S. attorneys and federal prosecutors across the country recognized that it was a massive opportunity for fraud and would require a massive enforcement effort to keep pace,” Nate said. “The set of potential cases is almost infinite, tens of thousands of cases.”
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