More than four years on from the start of COVID-19, a grueling hunt continues for people who defrauded federal assistance programs designed to soften the economic blow of the pandemic. And the best team of investigators and prosecutors at clawing back ill-gotten dollars so far is based in Denver. “Our office has been really successful in forfeitures,” said Matthew Kirsch, the acting U.
S. Attorney for the District of Colorado. “We will be able to charge many more cases than we have already brought and we will hold people accountable.
” Of the $1.4 billion the government has seized in small-business loans wrongfully obtained under the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, a key source of assistance to businesses, more than $1 billion has been secured through the DOJ’s Colorado District. Kirsch said an important SBA loan processing center fell under the district’s jurisdiction and a super-computer helped flag fraud in more than 58,000 applications from multiple states.
Colorado borrowers represented a fraction of those forfeitures. Those seizures were civil cases and came primarily in fiscal 2021. Winning criminal convictions and prison sentences has proven a more painstaking process, although Congress helped out in August 2022 by extending the statute of limitations on SBA loan fraud from six to 10 years .
Kirsh’s team, which includes attorneys and investigators from other agencies, has charged 30 people and secured a dozen criminal sentences in Colorado, with mor.