In one of the largest national crackdowns on fraud targeting federal coronavirus aid, the Justice Department on Wednesday said it had brought 718 law enforcement actions in connection with the alleged theft of more than $836 million.
The vast array of criminal charges and other sanctions — part of a federal sweep conducted over the past three months — reflected the ongoing, costly work in Washington to recover stolen pandemic funds roughly three years after the peak of the public health crisis.
I have a friend who was working at a bank for small business loans. He said it was a massive clusterfuck. There were no instructions, no one knew what to do, so they first just started gathering info so they could put the PPP applications when they did have direction, then that was all useless or something when the rules finally came in, and then it was all gone.
Definitely a mix of corruption for inside tracks, and bad communication which made prioritizing the largest applications first while everyone honest was scrambling to try to get people help in the chaos.