Treasury safeguards protects $3.7T from fraud

President Donald Trump and his administration have made uncovering rampant fraud a focal point of their agenda, but preventing further fraud is just as crucial to the administration. The Treasury Department announced Oct. 6 that it has implemented new safeguards responsible for shielding an estimated $3.7 trillion from fraud.

The Treasury enacted new verification procedures in order to stop federal taxpayer dollars from being paid into fraud schemes in the first place, moving away from what the department called the old model of “pay and chase.” In its press release, the Treasury touted the success of the new payment verification procedures, which it said identified 13,500 payments totaling $175 million that would have been paid to dead people.

The department also introduced measures to verify bank account ownership and to expand the reach of the Do Not Pay program, which equips federal agencies and federally funded state-managed agencies to identify and prevent fraud.

Previously, the Do Not Pay program was used in only 4% of applicable government programs. By the end of the 2026 fiscal year, the Treasury had implemented Do Not Pay in 99% of programs.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a press release that his department “continues to transform how the federal government protects taxpayer dollars by using better data, stronger controls, and advanced technology to stop fraud and improper payments before money goes out the door.”

“We are moving beyond ‘pay and chase’ and making prevention the federal government’s first line of defense,” he added.

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Widespread fraud came to national attention late in 2025 when multiple investigations revealed that billions of federal dollars had been stolen via fraud by Somali immigrants in Minneapolis. Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and his attorney general, fellow Democrat Keith Ellison, were largely faulted for permitting the fraud.

Following congressional and White House investigations, Vice President JD Vance, who leads the White House anti-fraud task force, referred Walz and Ellison to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation, as Zeale News reported at the time.

Federal agencies and investigators have uncovered billions of dollars of fraud in Medicaid and Medicare alone, with the Treasury Department announcing last month that it identified $17.5 billion in healthcare fraud. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. further confirmed that his agency prevented approximately $22 billion in fraud in one skin treatment program alone.

>> White House launches fraud ledger tracking nearly $230B in estimated fraud <<