Nearly $100B stolen in US pandemic relief funds

At least $100 billion at minimum has been stolen from Covid-19 relief programmes set up to help businesses and people who lost their jobs due to the pandemic, the US Secret Service has said.

Report informs, citing foreign media, that the estimate is based on Secret Service cases and data from the Labor Department and the Small Business Administration.

Most of that figure comes from unemployment fraud.

The Labor Department reported about $87 billion in unemployment benefits could have been paid improperly, with a significant portion attributable to fraud.