WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Justice Department has charged 57 people since May with trying to steal more than $175 million from the Paycheck Protection Program designed to help Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, a department official said on Thursday.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian Rabbitt said coordinated criminal rings have worked to defraud the program. “The involvement of these rings isn’t surprising, but it is particularly troubling to us here at the department, we will be focusing on these types of cases, going forward,” he said at a news conference.
(Reporting by Mark Hosenball, Michelle Price, Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
