The Trump administration is going after people defrauding the federal government, bigly. And by defrauding the federal government, well, we can take that to mean “stealing from us, the taxpayers.” The Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched a new branch, the National Fraud Enforcement Division, and they are already on the prowl, with a West Coast Task Force looking into fraud accusations in Arizona, Nevada, and northern California.
Here’s what the X post says:
The Fraud Division launches West Coast Strike Force to target HEALTH CARE FRAUD SCHEMES across AZ, NV, and Northern CA
“Driven by data showing a significant and accelerating increase in health care fraud across all three districts, the Strike Force builds on a foundation of recent landmark prosecutions — including the successful prosecution of digital health technology executives in the Northern District of California and the dismantling of Medicaid, sober home, and wound care fraud schemes in the District of Arizona,” said Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald.
A DOJ press release stated the following and then proceeded to provide a number of examples of massive fraud already uncovered:
This expansion brings enhanced federal enforcement resources to one of the nation’s most significant health care technology hubs in the Northern District of California and what data analytics show is the migration of fraud schemes to Arizona and Nevada. Late last year in San Francisco, the CEO and Chief Medical Officer of a digital technology company were convicted for an over $100 million scheme to commit health care fraud and distribute over Adderall over the internet, resulting in addiction and patient harm. These convictions followed other recent high-impact prosecutions that were jointly prosecuted by the Strike Force and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices prosecutors.
Let’s hope this fraud task force is just the first of many more to be formed. Already the DOJ has uncovered hundreds of millions in fraud – read as ‘theft of tax dollars from American taxpayers’. Imagine if we times these existing cases by the thousands; there is a potential that trillions of dollars in fraud has occurred. Imagine what better uses for that money we could put it to – or better yet, maybe not spend it at all.