Efforts by the Biden Administration to recover the $280 billion in stolen COVID relief funding have been largely unsuccessful, with only about $8 billion recovered so far.
As Just The News reports, the money that has been recovered was retrieved through prosecutions by the Department of Justice (DOJ). However, a letter from Congress has raised concerns about the overwhelming failure of the Biden Administration’s attempts to recover the full $280 billion.
The letter was sent to the DOJ last week by Congressman James Comer (R-Ky.), Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, who expressed his belief that the majority of the lost funds were stolen by foreign criminal rings in such countries as China, Russia, and Nigeria.
“It is highly concerning that possibly billions of taxpayer dollars intended to help Americans suffering the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were stolen by organized criminal rings in foreign countries,” said Comer in his letter. “Therefore, we write today to better understand the full scope of this problem and what actions the Department has taken to investigate international COVID-19 relief program fraud and hold these foreign actors accountable.”
“As of January 2023, the federal government spent approximately $4.6 trillion on aid programs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Comer continued. “This is equal to more than was spent by the entire federal government in every fiscal year prior to 2020.” He added that “estimates imply that at least half of all stolen COVID-19 relief funds went to Russian, Chinese, and Nigerian criminals.”
As such, Comer has demanded that the DOJ turn over to the committee all documents relating to the total number of cases, either current or closed, of fraudulent COVID aid committed by international actors, as well as the total value of all the fraud combined, and the total number of cases of international COVID fraud by the targeted relief fund.