Crime rings that use stolen identities to steal billions of federal governments tax money

The Trump administration has made fraud in Washington a keyword and commissioned the Ministry of Government Efficiency or Doge to eliminate it by the Federal Government.

According to Linda Miller, however, the government's cheating problem is much more complex and costly than most who spent a decade in the government's office and wrote the rule book to prevent fraud in federal programs.

Fraud is a crime and Miller believes that the costs for taxpayers will reach almost 1 trillion US dollar every year. She said the biggest perpetrators are not individuals who lie about their justification for programs such as unemployment insurance – they are highly developed criminals, often in overseas that are emptied for Americans in need.

“What we really speak are actors of nation states,” said Miller. “We are talking about organized crime rings. We speak of using large quantities of identities from the stolen Americans to monetize them for criminal activities.”

The threat from transnational fraud rings

The problem exploded during the Covid 19 pandemic when the government stormed trillion dollars into the economy to fight the Americans. Applications for aid programs have moved online, which makes it easier for people to gain access to help, but with just a few protective measures, fraudsters, hackers and organized crime rings, was also redeemed.

Miller, who was appointed to an independent watchdog committee in 2020, which was traced, as Covid was issued, said that she was theft.

“It was as if they were thrown into the air and just let people run around and grab it,” said Miller.

There is no official balance of how much pandemic funds has been lost due to fraud, but Miller estimates that it is more than 1 trillion US dollar -or one of five dollars -the greatest loss of fraud in the history of US history.

For Miller, the most outrageous part was that a large part of the money stolen in pandemic went to foreign controversy nation states, including China and Russia.

The fraud rings often failed with their stolen personal data.

In the past year, the FBI broke one of the greatest cases of digital fraud in the history of US history, where cyber criminals from all over the world were used to use stolen identities to put 6 billion US dollar in pandemic unemployment funds.

According to Bryan Vorndran, head of the Cyber ​​department of the FBI, the government is a goal for this type of fraud due to the massive amount of money.

He said that practically the personally identifiable information of each American name, date of birth, previous addresses, social security number – is available for purchase.

In some cases, the criminals are on the salary statement of foreign governments. Vindran described the fraud rings “digital gangs of the 21st century” and worked with knowledge that their governments do not interrupt their activities, even if it is illegal.

For example, China uses a group called the FBI apt41 – useful for an advanced continued threat. In 2021, according to the cyber security group Mandiant, APT41 carried out a highly developed and unusual hack of at least six governments in the state, although the researchers found that at least 18 countries may have been susceptible to the attack. According to Vorndran, APT41 used this access to commit financial crime in order to obtain a personal profit by cheating unemployment insurance programs in several states.

“They used stolen personally identifiable information … and essentially created fraudulent unemployment claims, then these revenues were washed by Shell companies, and this money was sent back to these people in China,” said Vorndran.

The best estimate of the FBI is that 60 million US dollars were taken over for about two years. Very little was recovered, said Vorndran.

Several law enforcement and national security officers announced 60 minutes that China was a top goal for stolen taxpayers dollars, but the systems are so complex and difficult to disgrace that the real losses are unknown.

Fraudsters who are aimed at the US government from abroad can be caught, told. But there is perception that some of the criminals are inviolable and that the US government is inferior to numbers.

“We are all numerous in the US government,” said Vorndran.

The real Americans behind stolen identities

Nowadays, transnational cyber criminal rings are still directed by government programs with tools such as AI-Deepfkes, synthetic identities and networks of stolen identities that are bound to fake emails and phones in accordance with the documents and data that were provided by anti-frag companies, including ID.ME, Sentlink and Socure.

“It's a whack-a-mole,” said Miller. “And these boys are careful. You can see where better controls are set up. And then go where the controls have not yet been improved.”

The fraudsters often target disaster financing, said Miller. You look at ZIP codes in which a disaster takes place and then buy stolen identities so that they can apply for disaster loans and disaster subsidies.

Rich and Deann Wilken, who survived the forest fires of Los Angeles in January, are among the victims of alleged identity fraud. They documented the destruction in their house of almost five decades and applied for disaster relief from the Federal Administrative Authority.

The Wilkens have never heard back, so that they followed and learned with a Fema representative in a disaster center that the personal data with which they had set up their FEMA account had been changed.

“At this point, too, we already had some of our other friends whose accounts were the same,” said Deann Wilken. “And we just go: 'Oh not we too.'”

The Wilkens was informed that their account was blocked due to alleged identity fraud. You have spent months waiting for the Fema to solve your case and it is unclear whether you will ever get money.

It is not just a program: where money gives, there is fraud – in unemployment, food brands, disabilities and tax reimbursements – and the Americans are fighting for access to what they are due.

Are you looking for Doge in the right places for fraud?

When President Trump returned to the White House in January, he started Doge to identify and deal with waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.

Miller welcomed the formation of Doge, but feared that he will bring fraud with wasteful expenses.

“You may not agree on what USAID does. You may not want to invest American dollars in the foreign fertilizer. You may think that this may be the wrong thing you can spend money on, but that's not a fraud,” she said.

Last year, the GAO published a report in which it estimated that the Federal Government loses up to 521 billion US dollars a year against fraud. But Miller and other fraud experts believe that the number is higher. Miller places the number between $ 550 and $ 750 billion a year.

Miller said there were many opportunities for mastiff to save considerable money if they concentrate on real fraud – which defines them as a deliberate deception that can be proven before a court.

“These are mom and Apple Pie. We all agree that bad actors shouldn't steal American taxpayers.”

Doge claims that taxpayers have saved more than 150 billion US dollars, sometimes examples of inaccurate cost cuts and later.

A spokesman for the White House announced 60 minutes that Doge had worked on improving data exchange between agencies and that the departments work together to identify fraud and prevent criminals from taking advantage of taxpayers.

Miller said she saw “some evidence” that Doge is concerned with the right problems.

“But at the moment I think that the jury is still adopted whether we are making this kind of progress or not,” she said.