As the District of Idaho’s COVID-19 Fraud Task Force looks back on its first year of operation, including a dozen successful prosecutions, the man in charge says we can expect a good many more charges against what they call “fraudsters.”
“At any given time, we probably have about a dozen of… what we call ‘matters under investigation,’” said Josh Hurwit, U.S. Attorney for the District of Idaho. “In addition to those matters, there are leads…a tip that comes in from the public or something that's noticed in the data where it hasn't been fully investigated yet. But it's something that we'll get to, as we work our way through.”
Hurwit visited with Morning Edition host George Prentice to talk about the matter.
“We were all impacted by the pandemic. And as I've said before, it's offensive to me … that people would take advantage of suffering that we were going through as a society.”Josh Hurwit
Read the full transcript below:
GEORGE PRENTICE: It's Morning Edition. Good morning. I'm George Prentice. U.S. Attorney Josh Hurwit and his colleagues at the US Attorney's Office for the District of Idaho … they investigate and prosecute so many types of alleged crimes. But a recent announcement caught our attention. The prosecution of people here in our region who exploited the pandemic to the worst degree. We're talking about something that might be labeled Covid fraud. So let's bring in us attorney Josh Hurwit. Mr. Hurwit, welcome back to the program.
JOSH HURWIT: Good morning, George. Thanks for having me.
PRENTICE: Do I have this right? The amount of fraud just in these initial cases totaled over $7 million?
HURWIT: That's correct. And we expect to find similar numbers going forward… unfortunately.
PRENTICE: Give us an example of what these folks did.
HURWIT: Sure. I think the most common thing that we're seeing at this point is what we're calling sham business fraud. So as you probably know, as part of the variety of Covid fraud relief programs that were rolled out during the heat of the pandemic, there were certain loan programs intended for businesses to keep the businesses afloat. What we found and have been finding is that individuals, once they learned of these opportunities, essentially made up businesses, applied for the loans from the various government entities and took the money. And now we're finding the details of what they did through essentially data analytics with our partners, our law enforcement partners. And we're able to trace back how the false applications were made, how the loan proceeds were disbursed, and then how the defendants spent the money.
PRENTICE: I want to talk about your partners in just a moment, but… was the motivation just greed?
HURWIT: Yep. you hit the nail on the head there. Tere are some instances where, you know, legitimate businesses, you know, were stretching and doing things improperly. But, you know, in our criminal cases, what we're finding is that fraudsters, as we call them, took advantage of the pandemic, saw an opportunity to essentially steal from the taxpayers and did so, you know, with greed as their motivation.
PRENTICE: What kind of cooperation among agencies and departments was necessary?
HURWIT: Yeah, that's the foundation of our success here. And as we've announced, we have 11 federal law enforcement partners, separate agencies working with us. You know, not all of those agencies actually have agents within Idaho. And so, we're looking at this as a regional collaboration with, let's say, the Small Business Administration that has folks in Seattle that come here on a regular basis to support our efforts, you know, along with the local resident agents in Idaho. We've been able to form great partnerships and dig into, you know, what starts as a lead becomes, you know, an in-depth investigation and will ultimately lead to charges being brought.
PRENTICE: So, we're talking about prosecutions and convictions and even sentences in these first cases. Are we talking about hard time behind bars for these crimes?
HURWIT: Absolutely. You know, a few of the cases that we've announced recently sort of in our year-end wrap up and say year end, wrap up, the task force we have here has been in existence for a year now. We've seen sentences of five years, three years, two years. So people that commit these crimes are looking at federal prison time. There is no parole. So when we say, you know, let's say a 30 month sentence, that's 30 months in a federal penitentiary somewhere around the country.
PRENTICE: Is the task force still in….well, for lack of a better phrase…still in it's early phases?
HURWIT: That's right. You know, I think that we're fully up to speed now in terms of our internal processes, but I expect that within the next 12 months, we will be charging a similar number of cases and identifying a similar amount of fraud and seeing, you know, several more sentences where people are held accountable.
PRENTICE: Can you speak to… I guess when I looked at the first number of cases and they are eye popping… my first takeaway was… it was less about the number of prosecutions, but indeed there's a number of prosecutions…but it's really the severity of the crimes… and how citizens are impacted by these crimes.
HURWIT: That's right. I mean, I think … if we step back, we were all impacted by the pandemic. And as I've said before, it's offensive to me at least… that people would take advantage of suffering that we were going through as a society. As you said, you know, as we talked about, apply greed and make things worse, because there were many people that didn't have the opportunity to take advantage of the types of programs that we're talking about here. And so, for others to come in and fraudulently do so is, like I said, offensive.
PRENTICE: As a layperson, I'm fascinated by what you and your colleagues do. Is there a common thread in this type of greed? Is there a profile for this type of criminal?
HURWIT: Not really, other than their shared method of legally lining their pockets, you know, there's not a, you know, demographic profile. For example, we've seen people that are, you know, young, you know, in their 20s and 30s. We've seen people that are, you know, in their 60s and maybe not 70s. But, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if we see someone, you know, in later stages of life. I guess the human inclination to engage in fraud is something that's innate throughout all parts of our society, unfortunately.
PRENTICE: How do you catch these people? I'm guessing it takes a pretty significant team, as you mentioned, but is it initially forensics?
HURWIT: Yes. There's actually two ways that I wanted to highlight with you and your listeners. One is the forensic method. And, you know, in broad brush strokes, that is agents looking at data, looking at loans, looking at applications for loans, looking for indicators of fraud. You know, a very basic one is in order to receive something like a loan, the business had to be in existence prior to the start of the pandemic. Right. So, you know, we can look at filings with the secretary of state and determine, you know, how long has this business even been in existence. So through analytics like that, we get a lot of our leads. In addition, in something that's been really comforting to me actually, is that we've received several leads based on tips from the public. You know, we publicized ways for anybody, you know, in our community to contact us, to contact the FBI with tips. And several folks, fortunately, have done that and have led to many of our investigations.
PRENTICE: And I want to make sure I heard you right. There are open cases. There are open files right now of more possible prosecutions.
HURWIT: Absolutely. You know, at any given time, we probably have about a dozen what we call matters under investigation. So, cases where we think there is evidence to potentially bring a charge. But we're developing that through the process. In addition to those matters, there are leads, which is, you know, a tip that comes in from the public or something that's noticed in the data where it hasn't been fully investigated yet. But it's something that we'll get to, you know, as we work our way through the backlog here.
PRENTICE: What's the best way for the public to offer a possible tip?
HURWIT: Yes. So there's a hotline number, the DOJ national number. And so I can give you that. It's (866) 720-5721. I also encourage people to call our office and that number is (208) 334-1211.
PRENTICE: He is US Attorney Josh Hurwit…U.S. Attorney for the District of Idaho. Mr. Hurwit, to you and your colleagues, thank you for what you do every day, and for this particular day. Thanks for giving me some time.
HURWIT: Of course. It's great to be with you. Thank you so much for your help.
Find reporter George Prentice on Twitter @georgepren
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