Fraud By The Numbers Series
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Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 29
In October 1970, Lynn Anderson sang her way into country music stardom crooning, “I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden.” Anderson’s cover shot to number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 by February 1971 and earned Anderson the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for 1970. For whistleblowers, there…
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Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 28
We talk a lot about False Claims Act recoveries for the United States as a whole. But we rarely look at where exactly the cases that lead to those recoveries are filed, and which U.S. Attorneys’ Offices in those districts are working with relators most frequently to deliver those results. To help answer those questions,…
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Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 27
Are you considering becoming a whistleblower? If so, you are one of the few and the brave. It may seem like whistleblowers are very common. After all, they are heroes of popular films such as The Insider, Erin Brockevich, The Informant, The Pelican Brief, and many others. But as popular as whistleblowers are in Hollywood, their actual…
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Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 26
Corporate defense counsel and their allies such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have unfairly maligned whistleblowers as “living the dream” and receiving a “windfall” from their awards. This characterization could not be further from the truth. Not only do whistleblowers face enormous risk–often for relatively little reward–but the tax code benefits fraudsters over whistleblowers…
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Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 25
According to the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) recently released “Snapshot of Government Spending,” the federal government spent about $637 billion on contracts for Fiscal Year 2021. Roughly 7.6% of all government contracting went to the purchases of drugs and biologics.1 Civilian agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services bought $13 Billion, and defense related…
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Fraud By The Numbers Sept. 24
Medical devices can be big or small, ordinary or incredible. They include such disparate items as surgical face masks and cardiac defibrillators. In fiscal year 2020, Medicare paid $11.2 billion for durable (multiple use) medical equipment and $2.3 billion for non-durable (single use) medical equipment, a total of $13.5 billion for the two categories that…
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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.…
