DOJ and Seven States Announce $350 Million Southeast Fraud Sweep

Overview

• The Department of Justice announced Thursday a coordinated enforcement effort that identifies roughly $350 million in alleged intended losses across 17 cases in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
• Prosecutors said 12 defendants have been charged since July 4 as part of the operation and that prosecutions are already underway in multiple districts.
• Officials singled out several large alleged schemes, including a Mississippi Small Business Administration kickback case, a North Carolina COVID-related tax-refund scheme of about $25 million, and an alleged $174 million Medicare genetic-testing fraud in Louisiana.
• The DOJ formalized a data-sharing agreement with the seven states at a roundtable in Columbia, South Carolina, allowing federal teams to use public corporate registration and benefits payment records to trace patterns across jurisdictions.
• The effort is tied to a broader White House anti-fraud push led by the Anti-Fraud Task Force and to Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, and officials say the steps aim to protect taxpayer-funded programs and yield more cross-jurisdictional prosecutions.