Fraudsters are taking advantage of the pandemic and increasing the threat landscape for governments and enterprises around the world in a wide-reaching fashion.
COVID-19-related scams are running rampant. There are reports of a rise in charity fraud, fake job claims, fake COVID-19 tests on the black market, supply chain fraud, price gouging, cyber scams and more. In late 2020, two Texas men were charged with trying to sell $317 million in fake N95 face masks to a foreign government. The government made a payment to the men but the payment was intercepted before it went through, according to prosecutors.
In 2019, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) in charge of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, received under 800 calls on its fraud hotline. Through August of 2020, the fraud hotline had more than 42,000 calls. Though we have yet to know the real extent of fraud among government coronavirus relief packages such as PPP and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL), experts estimate it’s at least in the tens of millions. Multiple people have already been charged with PPP-related fraud claims.