Fraud By The Numbers Series
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Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 23
Government and academic sources refer to the difference in the amount of money paid in taxes and the amount owed as the “Tax Gap.” The IRS Commissioner recently cited the federal tax gap as $1 trillion per year. Mind that gap! In addition, each state has its own tax gap. Estimates of these gaps are hard to…
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Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 22
In 1986, Congress passed the False Claims Act Amendments. From 1986 until 2019 DOJ, together with the whistleblowers the law empowered, clawed back more than $62 Billion in settlements and judgments related to Government fraud. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns, and a public health emergency declaration that’s still in place today, three years later. As…
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Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 21
Private equity investment in healthcare providers has skyrocketed over the last decade. Between 2010 and 2019, private equity deals in healthcare nearly tripled in value—from $43 billion to $124 billion—totaling $750 billion over the last decade. That’s more than the combined budgets of the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department…
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Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 20
Given cryptocurrency’s massive market cap and propensity for volatility, it is no surprise that cryptocurrency is a hot new topic among government agencies tasked with tracking and prosecuting fraud. According to Pew Research, 16% of Americans have invested in, used or traded crypto, and that number jumps to 31% of Americans ages 18 to 29.…
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Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 19
In 2009, the United Nations estimated that criminal proceeds were approximately 3.6% of global GDP, with 2.7% of GDP or $1.6 trillion a year being laundered. Seeing as Global GDP is higher today, if this percentage holds, the figures would be more like $2.5 trillion dollars a year being laundered. Making matters more staggering, cryptocurrency…
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Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 18
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, known as NHTSA, issued a report in June 2022 publicizing 392 crashes involving “partially automated driver-assist systems,” in the 11 months since it began requiring automakers to report these incidents.1 Partially automated driver-assist systems are innovations that control the car’s steering, speeding up, and slowing down without the driver.…
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Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 17
Healthcare and defense spending rank number 1 and 2 in the federal budget every year. It is not surprising that they would similarly take top-billing in fraud recoveries. As described on September 1, DOJ issues an annual report detailing statistics on its FCA recoveries. DOJ’s report breaks recoveries into three groups: “Health and Human Services,” Department…
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Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 16
The federal government awarded almost $811 billion in grants in FY2021. That is up from almost $727 billion in 2020 and $528 billion in 2019 a 53% increase in three years. The increase in awards over the past few years can be attributed to COVID-related priorities. For instance, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) made…
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Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 15
The United States’ whistleblower programs are a model for other countries. American exceptionalism generally may be a matter for debate, but not when it comes to empowering, protecting and rewarding whistleblowers – that’s one area in which the good ol’ US of A can absolutely claim moral leadership. That leadership shows in the way US…
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Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 14
Last year we described the immense job facing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. agency charged with regulating financial markets. The SEC’s staff of 4,459 people is responsible for overseeing nearly every part of the United States’ $110 trillion capital markets. That’s about $24.7 billion per person—more than the entire value of Rupert…
