The U.S. dollar is seen in this picture.
The U.S. Secret Service said that criminals have stolen close to $100 billion in relief funds.
The funds were diverted by fraudsters from the Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program, the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program and another program set up to dole out unemployment assistance funds nationwide.
More than 100 suspects have been arrested for their roles in the theft of more than $2 billion in funds.
The Secret Service, which specializes in financial fraud and is well-known for its role in presidential protection, has created a new national Pandemic Fraud Recovery Coordinator to oversee its investigations into the enormous number of fraud cases resulting from all that theft.
Roy Dotson, who was named to the new role at the agency, said he had never seen anything like it before.
The ease of obtaining funds has made it easier for criminals, according to Dotson.
The programs were easy to find online. Bad actors can get into that mix with that. It was necessary to give these funds to people that were hurting, and no one was faulting.
The Secret Service has more than 900 active investigations related to fraud.
Dotson said that the pot was so big that it was a wide range. There are people that decided to take advantage of your typical organized groups and criminal groups. There are many different patterns and investigative intelligence that I can't really go into. Some of the different characteristics of different groups have been mapped out.
Dotson is based in the Jacksonville field office and is in charge of investigations related to cryptocurrencies fraud. In those cases, criminals often convince victims to transfer funds into cryptocurrencies which are used for illegal schemes or open bank accounts which are used to launder money.
The sheer scope of fraudulent loans, unemployment insurance benefits, and other things is the primary difficulty, he said. The number of individuals that receive those is enormous.
Roy Dotson is an assistant to the special agent.
The Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program were rolled out last year. The programs have had problems. The Labor Department inspector general blamed inadequate controls for billions of dollars in potential fraud.
The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program made it easy to commit fraud. A report released in March by the Labor Department's Office of Inspector General said that at least $89 billion of the estimated $896 billion in unemployment program funds could be paid improper.
Law enforcement officials said that CNBC confirmed that fraudsters opened accounts with at least four online investment programs. The investigators said that it is easy to dump money into accounts with stolen identities on the digital platforms.
According to authorities, more than $100 million in fraudulent funds have been passed through investment accounts since Congress passed the CARES Act.
