Whistleblowers who report financial fraud could receive a significant payout from the Trump administration.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a new program on Monday to pay eligible whistleblowers for providing actionable tips related to fraud, money laundering, sanctions violations, and other national security laws.
'The scale of this is unbelievable.'
The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network submitted a proposed rule to implement the new program.
Fraud whistleblowers could receive 10% to 30% of the fines imposed on the criminals they report.
This latest announcement is part of President Donald Trump's crackdown on fraud, an issue that has remained in the national spotlight following journalist Nick Shirley's investigative reporting in Minnesota and California.
"As promised, Treasury will reward whistleblowers who provide timely, actionable information on fraud, sanctions violations, and other significant illicit finance activity," Bessent stated. "President Trump has been clear that Americans have a right to know that their tax dollars are not being diverted to fund acts of global terror or to fund luxury cars for fraudsters. At Treasury, we follow the money, and we strongly encourage individuals to come forward with credible tips to help safeguard our financial system."
RELATED: Vance’s fraud task force drops hammer: 70 California hospice and home health providers suspended
The Treasury Department has already received over 700 leads, according to Bessent.
During an interview with Fox News, Bessent explained that "a lot" of the financial fraud could be attributed to COVID relief.
"Many of the agencies under the Biden administration gutted their fraud departments, their fraud detection, or took down the fraud detection to get the money out quickly for COVID relief. But they never brought back the guardians of our money. So we have to have integrity in these programs," Bessent told the news outlet.
Bessent estimated that the federal government may be able to recoup hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds.
"The scale of this is unbelievable," Bessent said.
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Vice President JD Vance has been tapped to lead the administration's new Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that it had suspended 70 hospice and home health providers as part of its work with the task force to identify high-risk providers.
"Vice President Vance looks forward to carrying out the president's war on fraud," a spokesperson for Vance previously told Blaze News. "The American people deserve better than being ripped off by people who hate this country, and the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud will ensure that essential taxpayer-funded services are used to support the hardworking Americans who rely on them, instead of being used by fraudsters and criminals."
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The Trump administration's new Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, chaired by Vice President JD Vance, is moving to suspend dozens of Los Angeles businesses.
On March 16, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing the task force, announcing that it would advise the president and coordinate efforts to end fraud, waste, and abuse in government benefit programs.
'The American people deserve better than being ripped off by people who hate this country.'
The task force is working with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to identify and suspend hospice and home health providers flagged as high risk.
CMS has suspended 70 providers, a source told Blaze News.
"As the task force to root out waste, fraud, and abuse ramps up its work, we expect this number to grow exponentially," the source stated.
This latest action from the CMS builds on a February announcement of action to protect taxpayers by cracking down on fraud in the Medicare and Medicaid systems. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz joined Vance to reveal that the administration had deferred $259.5 million in quarterly Medicaid funding in Minnesota due to fraud concerns. Additionally, the CMS implemented a six-month moratorium on new Medicare enrollment for certain durable medical equipment suppliers.
The task force plans to utilize the CMS' existing template, which involves an AI-driven internal fraud detection system that either blocks claims or flags them for review, a source told Blaze News.
This system can be scaled across the government to root out waste, fraud, and abuse nationwide more effectively. The task force is actively hiring CMS technologists to deploy this system.
"Vice President Vance looks forward to carrying out the president's war on fraud," a spokesperson for Vance told Blaze News. "The American people deserve better than being ripped off by people who hate this country, and the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud will ensure that essential taxpayer-funded services are used to support the hardworking Americans who rely on them, instead of being used by fraudsters and criminals."
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The White House's announcement about the establishment of the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud followed a bombshell investigation in December by journalist Nick Shirley, who uncovered a massive social-services fraud scandal in Minnesota.
The Trump administration appeared to confirm these reports, stating in its task force fact sheet that Medicaid fraud in Minnesota "could total billions," adding that it was taking action to end the "epidemic."
"There is strong reason to believe similar vulnerabilities exist in California, Illinois, New York, Maine, and Colorado, where insufficient safeguards and weak oversight increase the risk of large-scale fraud," the White House wrote.
Earlier this month, Shirley revealed over $170 million in alleged day-care and hospice fraud in California.
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The Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said Rochester police officers and a Crisis Response Team social worker were called to an apartment in the 1900 block of Ashland Drive Northwest around 9:30 p.m. March 11 on a report that a man was experiencing a mental health crisis.
Officers and social workers arrived and spoke to the man in his apartment, the bureau said, adding that an adult female and multiple children also were present.
The bureau said White 'grabbed an officer’s firearm during the struggle and pulled the trigger, causing the gun to fire.'
Officers and the social worker noted that the man was acting erratically and paranoid, and they concluded that he possibly was a threat to himself and others, the bureau said.
Authorities decided to place the man — later identified as 47-year-old Cleavon White — on a 72-hour mental health hold and told him he would be transported to a hospital, the bureau said.
After White refused to go, officers then attempted to take him into custody, the bureau said.
But White resisted and a struggle ensued, the bureau said.
The bureau said White "grabbed an officer’s firearm during the struggle and pulled the trigger, causing the gun to fire."
Police bodycam video of the incident — which can be viewed here — recorded the moment when the officer shouted, "He's grabbing my gun!"
Seconds later, another officer fired five shots, according to the bodycam video.
The bureau said the shots struck White, after which officers immediately rendered medical aid until an ambulance arrived and transported him to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
In the aftermath of the shooting, someone is heard on the bodycam video asking where the gun is, and someone else — presumably the officer who shouted, "He's grabbing my gun!" — is heard saying, "It's still in my holster."
No officers were injured, the bureau said.
Officer Josiah Duit — who has three years of law enforcement experience — fired his department-issued firearm, the bureau said, adding that the Rochester Police Department placed Duit on critical incident leave.
A March 12 news release from Rochester Police said the then-unidentified man grabbed one officer’s firearm during the struggle, but it did not indicate he pulled the trigger. The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension issued it's report March 17. The police bodycam video was released Wednesday.
The bureau said the Rochester Police Department requested that it investigate the use of force, and the bureau will present its findings without recommendation on charges to the Olmsted County Attorney’s Office for review.
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If you’ve been following the news this week, it might look like we’re losing the fight against the kind of fraud you remember from Nick Shirley’s visit to that government-funded Quality Learing Center. In Minnesota, two remarkable sentences delivered by the same federal judge in the “Feeding the Future” scandal make stealing from the government […]
The task force has a wide range of activity that it considers fraud.
'These shifts were largely due to lower levels of net international migration, which declined nationwide.'
TakeAction Minnesota is 'basically a front group that can get away with doing some things the unions can't,' said Rhyen Staley, research director at Defending Education.
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