US government lost some $5.6bln via documented fraud in 2021
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The United States is bleeding from fraud, losing billions - if not more - throughout 2021 in documented fraud.
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The US Government Accountability Office (GAO)
The US government lost at least $5.6 billion in documented cases of recorded fraud in the Fiscal Year of 2021, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report on Monday.
"For Fiscal Year 2021, $4.5 billion was reported as confirmed fraud," the GAO said.
However, the report added that "the Department of Defense reported at least $1.1 billion in confirmed fraud to CIGIE [The Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency] in Fiscal Year 2021, but reported $0 in confirmed fraud to OMB [the White House Office of Management and Budget] in the same period."
Using information collected from federal agencies, the OMB report confirmed fraud cases that have been confirmed by a court and do not represent anything settled out of court with or without admission of guilt on its website, the report stressed.
"Agencies define fraud differently, making fraud and related data difficult to study across agencies. Because of the deceptive nature of fraud, it isn't always detected or reported. Existing data on fraud is incomplete and inconsistent," the report added.
The conflicting figures raised questions about the quality of reported federal fraud data, the report said.
Corruption on the federal level is nothing new in the United States, as it was discovered in September that Former US President Donald Trump's longtime ally and one-time top strategist, Steve Bannon, has been charged with money laundering and conspiracy for allegedly deceiving donors into an effort to help Trump build a wall along the US-Mexico border.
Bannon, 68, was charged with two counts of money laundering, three counts of conspiracy, and one count of scheming to defraud in an indictment.
The case arose from what prosecutors have described as a private $25 million fundraising drive, known as "We Build the Wall," for the former Republican President's signature wall.
According to the indictment, Bannon promised donors that all of their money would go toward the wall while concealing his role in diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars to the drive's chief executive, who had promised not to take a salary.
In court documents, the chief executive is identified as Brian Kolfage, an Air Force veteran who pleaded guilty in April to federal wire fraud conspiracy and tax charges and is awaiting sentencing.
The indictment concerns some of the conduct that led to Bannon's federal prosecution in August 2020, which also claimed he diverted nearly $1 million for personal expenses.
Bannon pleaded not guilty in that case, and the case ended when Trump pardoned him in the final hours of his presidency in January 2021. It is noteworthy that state prosecutions are not barred by presidential pardons.
