U.S. Vice President JD Vance says an anti-fraud task force set up by the administration has begun recovering billions of dollars linked to fraudulent small business loans, COVID-19 relief funds and student aid programmes.
Vance disclosed this during a meeting with state attorneys general on Tuesday as part of the administration’s task force on fraud.
According to him, the task force had within two months uncovered billions of dollars allegedly stolen through fraudulent government benefit schemes.
“We referred over 22 billion dollars in fraudulent small business loans back to the Treasury for collection,” Vance said.
He added that more than 1.3 billion dollars in alleged fraudulent Medicaid reimbursements had also been deferred, particularly from states such as California.
The vice president further disclosed that the government had placed a six-month suspension on new enrolments for hospice and home healthcare providers following discoveries that some operators allegedly existed mainly to exploit the system.
“Many of the newer hospice providers were not actually providing hospice services but were just focused on fraud,” he said.
Vance also claimed that about 135 billion dollars allegedly lost during the COVID-19 pandemic relief programmes had been recovered, alongside 6.3 billion dollars tied to suspected fraudulent government contracts.
In a statement, the White House said President Donald Trump and Vance were intensifying efforts to tackle fraud and financial crimes affecting government programmes.
The statement described the initiative as “an unrelenting, full-scale assault on fraudsters, scammers and corrupt operators who have looted billions from American taxpayers.”
The White House also released a list of alleged fraud-related cases and enforcement actions, many of which were connected to California and Minnesota.
No Republican-led states were specifically mentioned in the release.
