Justice Department leaders say they are focusing on efforts to stop coronavirus fraud. In a March 16 memo to U.S. attorneys, Attorney General Bill Barr wrote that they have seen reports of phishing emails pretending to be from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and of people selling fake cures for Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
“The pandemic is dangerous enough without wrongdoers seeking to profit from public panic and this sort of conduct cannot be tolerated,” Barr wrote, encouraging prosecutors to work with Justice Department headquarters on cases related to the pandemic.
And in a memo sent the next week, Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said the country faces “an unfortunate array of criminal activity” regarding the pandemic, which is “reprehensible and will not be tolerated.”
He listed a variety of reported frauds: robocalls claiming to sell non-existent respirator masks, social media scams claiming to send people relief checks if they share their bank account numbers, even robberies of people leaving hospitals.
Imported items, meant to go to frontline workers, have also been caught in the hunt for scams. In recent weeks, the Food and Drug Administration, working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, has found thousands of coronavirus tests and masks that, once inspected, turned out to be bootleg.
The problem has reached the highest levels of the White House’s coronavirus task force. In a recent briefing with reporters, Dr. Deborah Birx, one of the government’s top medical voices during the coronavirus crisis, warned Americans to not fall for fake companies promising tests.
Source: politico.com
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