Secret Service fraud recovery official on pandemic stimulus: 'Fast money equals fast crime'

Fraud recovery experts at the FBI and Secret Service detailed the challenges facing law enforcement in recouping billions of stolen taxpayer funds after the federal government dedicated a record amount of money to pandemic benefits since March 2020.
"I've never seen anything of this magnitude," said National Pandemic Fraud Recovery Coordinator Roy Dotson, who has 30 years experience in law enforcement, during a discussion on combating fraud organized by the Bethesda Chapter of AFCEA. "It was an online application so pretty simple. You could look up whatever information you wanted or use other people's identification, PII [Personal Identifiable Information], and put that in and the money just flowed to whatever accounts you wanted it to."