Sen. Josh Hawley pressed fraud prevention expert Haywood Talcove during a hearing over what he described as the misappropriation of $1 trillion in taxpayer funds each year, asking where the money is going and how criminal networks are accessing it.

“Where's this money going? I mean, we know where some of it's going. In Minnesota, went overseas. It went to Somalia, went to it went to NGO fronts. We know where it's gone in some other states. California gave away millions, billions of dollars to a pro-Hamas NGO, where? But a trillion dollars nationally. Where's this money going to?” Hawley asked.

Talcove responded directly.

“I appreciate that question, because most people don't ask that question. It goes to terrorism, it goes to child trafficking, it goes to drugs, it goes to terrorism, and then it's used to purchase luxury items, cars, purses, homes, that's all funded by people like me that pay taxes.”

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Hawley followed up by describing the impact on working Americans.

“So it's you're telling me that the electrician who goes to work every day and clocks in and works his butt off and tries to earn just enough to be able to, you know, make his rent, maybe have a kid or two, put food on the table, his tax money is being used to buy other people luxury items, cars, yachts, whatever else, and is going to fund terrorism and child trafficking.”

“Yes, sir,” Talcove replied.

Hawley emphasized the scale of the issue.

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“A trillion dollars a year on this stuff.”

“$115 million an hour,” Talcove responded.

“$115 million an hour. How do they get in their hands on it? What? What are we talking about here? Trends, national organizations, criminal networks. How do they get their hands on this?” Hawley asked.

Talcove said fraudsters exploit outdated systems.

“They they take advantage of antiquated government systems and processes. They go into programs that they know elected and appointed officials won't touch and they can steal at scale. And what happened really was, during the pandemic, between the PPP loans and the unemployment insurance, they learned a really valuable lesson. Government never runs out of money, and the probability of getting caught is virtually zero. I have it at 110 of 1%.”

Hawley then asked about solutions.

“So come back to the recommendations that you mentioned in your opening statement. What do we need to do to to put a stop to this hemorrhaging of people's hard earned money going overseas to finite finance child trafficking and luxury yachts. What needs to happen here?”

Talcove outlined several steps.

“It's really simple. It's used every single day in the commercial sector, front end identity verification. You just don't get to say I am who I say I am. Second recertification of all the recipients. There is so much fraud right now in the benefit programs all across the country, we need to get a baseline third these. Is these, this notion of a third party, independent audit, and finally, is involving federal law enforcement like the Secret Service to investigate it. The thing that people don't understand is that most of these beneficiaries, Senator, they're not real. They're fake. They're someone's stolen identity that is getting used in all 50 states.”

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