Listen up, folks, because if you’re an American who’s been grinding through the aftermath of the COVID nightmare, scraping by while the economy tanked, you’re going to love this one. Remember all that “relief” money that was supposed to keep our families afloat? Turns out a chunk of it—billions upon billions—wound up lining the pockets of non-citizens lounging in other countries. Yeah, you read that right. While Joe Sixpack was wondering how to pay the rent, Uncle Sam was wiring cash to fraudsters in Nigeria, hackers in China, and even legitimate outfits in Switzerland. It’s an abomination, a slap in the face to every taxpayer who believes in America First. Let’s dive into the real facts, no sugarcoating, because this mess deserves to be called out for what it is: a colossal failure of government incompetence that shipped our hard-earned dollars overseas.
The Stimulus Check Blunder: Millions Mailed to Foreigners by Mistake
Back in the spring of 2020, when the first round of stimulus checks rolled out under the CARES Act, the IRS decided to play fast and loose with eligibility. Thousands of foreign workers—folks here on temporary visas—got $1,200 popped into their accounts or mailed to their home countries. We’re talking people from Bulgaria, Colombia, Jamaica, Montenegro, you name it. These weren’t U.S. citizens; they were non-residents who had filed taxes while working stateside temporarily. But the system glitched, and by May 2020, nearly 28,000 such payments had gone out, totaling $34 million.
Fast forward to the next rounds in December 2020 and March 2021, and the screw-ups kept coming. Banks overseas, like the Bank of Guam, ended up seizing checks from dozens of people in places like Micronesia because the IRS realized too late these folks weren’t eligible. The feds tried clawing some back, but good luck with that—money sent abroad doesn’t come home easy. And get this: even as the IRS admitted the errors, they repeated the mistakes, sending more rounds to the same ineligible crowd. It’s like watching a bad rerun where the punchline is your tax dollars vanishing into thin air.
Unemployment Benefits: A Fraud Bonanza for International Crooks
If the stimulus slips were bad, the unemployment insurance debacle was a full-blown catastrophe. Congress pumped over $888 billion into expanded UI programs from March 2020 through May 2023, including temporary gigs like Pandemic Unemployment Assistance for self-employed types. But here’s the kicker: between $100 billion and $135 billion of that—11 to 15 percent—got siphoned off in fraud. And a massive slice went straight to non-citizens abroad, courtesy of organized crime rings treating our relief funds like an all-you-can-steal buffet.
These weren’t random hacks; they were pros. Nigerian scammers, Russian mobsters, and Chinese hackers used stolen American identities—Social Security numbers, birthdates, the works—from old data breaches. They’d file bogus claims online, often from foreign IP addresses, and rake in weekly benefits plus that sweet $600 federal supplement. One Nigerian outfit, dubbed Scattered Canary, filed at least 174 fake claims in Washington state alone in April and May 2020, potentially netting $4.7 million if they all paid out. Another big fish, a Nigerian government official named Abedemi Rufai, got nabbed in May 2021 at JFK Airport with evidence of stealing $350,000 across seven states. He was flying first class back home, probably on our dime.
States like California got hammered hardest, admitting over $11 billion in UI fraud by early 2021, with projections ballooning to $31 billion. Maryland flagged over half a million suspicious claims in May and June 2021, most blocked but many slipping through. The fraudsters laundered it all through money mules, apps like Cash App, and crypto, shipping the cash overseas to fund everything from drug rings to human trafficking. Recoveries? Pathetic. The feds clawed back maybe $1.3 billion here, $100 million there, but the bulk—tens of billions—is gone for good, enriching crooks in damn near every country on the planet.
Broader Bucks Abroad: $6.4 Billion in Contracts and Grants to Foreign Outfits
It wasn’t just individual handouts and fraud; the government funneled $6.4 billion in pandemic funding to about 2,000 recipients across 177 countries through roughly 4,000 contracts and 1,000 grants. Switzerland topped the list with over $2 billion, thanks to international headquarters in Geneva sucking up the dough. Forty-three percent of the total went to just three big players, handling stuff like global health fights and refugee aid.
A lot came from the Department of Defense for overseas military ops and USAID for helping refugees—worthy causes, maybe, but not when Americans were hurting at home. This wasn’t pocket change for random foreigners; it was institutional cash, but it still meant our relief dollars were propping up operations worldwide instead of fixing things stateside. By July 2024, the data was still trickling in, showing just how far and wide this spread.
The Real Cost: Delays, Denials, and Distrust for Actual Americans
While scammers feasted, real Americans suffered. Legitimate claimants waited months for benefits because systems got clogged with fakes—think folks like a freelance writer in Indiana battling identity theft twice over. States’ outdated tech from the 1980s couldn’t keep up, and even simple fixes like blocking foreign IPs or cross-checking citizenship weren’t rolled out fast enough. By spring 2023, most states had beefed up tools—ID verification hit 85 percent usage, IP checks 88 percent—but it was too little, too late for the early waves.
And the hits keep coming. As of September 2023, the feds estimated that fraud in the special Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program was even higher than regular UI. States reported spotting $55.8 billion in overpayments from March 2020 to March 2023, with $5.3 billion pegged as straight-up fraud. They recovered $6.8 billion total, including just $1.2 billion of the fraudulent stuff. The rest? Poof—gone to ghosts abroad.
Time to Wake Up and Put America First
This whole saga is a textbook case of Washington bungling: rush the money out the door, skip the safeguards, and watch as non-citizens abroad laugh all the way to the bank. We’re talking over $100 billion minimum in fraud alone, much of it offshore, plus erroneous stimulus millions and institutional billions that could’ve stayed home. It’s not just numbers; it’s betrayal. Hardworking folks lost jobs, homes, and hope while the system rewarded thieves and foreigners.
Enough with the global giveaway. Next time disaster strikes—and it will—we need ironclad rules: Verify identities up front, block foreign access cold, and prioritize Americans every damn time. Anything less is an insult to the people footing the bill. If this doesn’t fire you up to demand better, nothing will.