As federal and state governments fight the COVID-19 pandemic, they also will face waves of fraud. Unscrupulous profiteers will compound the pandemic’s misery by scheming to steal taxpayer money. In fact, they already have done so. COVID-19 has caused both health care and economic crises. With the unprecedented trillions of dollars that governments will be spending, the scale of fraud is likely to be unprecedented as well.
Rapidly emerging and evolving fraud schemes target our health care systems and programs, our government procurement channels, and our financial markets. We represent whistleblower clients in all of those areas. Specific areas where we expect to find COVID-19 fraud include:
This list is by no means exhaustive. Law enforcement and government agencies are working hard to protect public health and the public fisc from COVID-19 fraud. However, they need help. Whistleblowers are important now more than ever to help uncover scams, recover money for the government, and bring to justice those who exploit this crisis for illegal gain.
If you know of COVID-19 fraud, please contact us. Whistleblowers can be eligible for rewards under the False Claims Act or other whistleblower programs. To read more about COVID-19 fraud, please see the posts below.
June 12, 2020
This week, Department of Justice officials appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee. They described steps DOJ is taking to detect, investigate, and prosecute COVID-19 scams. The two officials were Associate...May 27, 2020
The largest of the federal Offices of Inspectors General is at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS OIG). As we have written before, Offices of Inspectors General are...May 19, 2020
On May 15th, federal authorities in Florida arrested a Georgia woman for testing fraud. The criminal complaint charges Ashley Hoobler Parris with conspiring to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and...May 14, 2020
We’ve written before that chaos creates the perfect storm for fraud and opportunism. One of the reasons for this is the underlying nature of capitalism itself: capitalism rewards risk-taking and...May 11, 2020
Two New Englanders have the dubious distinction of being the first persons in the nation prosecuted for COVID-19 stimulus fraud. Federal authorities arrested the two men last week. They allegedly...May 5, 2020
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is moving aggressively against companies and individuals involved in COVID-19 investment scams. We have warned of the many ways bad actors will look to...
