The Justice Department is charging 17 employees of the Broward County, Florida Sheriff's office with defrauding the federal government by stealing COVID relief funds. All of the charged individuals were sworn officers. By providing false information to the federal government to acquire CARES Act funds, the accused stole nearly $500,000 in funds from the American people.

In 2020, Congress enacted the CARES Act which established funds meant to stabilize small businesses during the early part of the COVID pandemic. This created programs like the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program. 

There are 150 cases that have been pursued by the Justice Department so far regarding fraud and theft of CARES Act money. Those cases have totaled $195 Million in stolen money.

Here's the Justice Department's press release:

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Officials estimate that up to 17% of the $800 Billion of the PPP and EIDL COVID relief funds have been "disbursed to potentially fraudulent actors.” When Congress passed the CARES Act, they lacked real money to fund the program so they turned to the printing press to create new money to fund the programs. This is what caused the massive levels of inflation we are encountering today.

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