Haywood Talcove said criminals use stolen identities bought on the dark web to form LLCs, open seemingly legitimate providers and bill taxpayers for services never delivered.
Minnesota was “particularly egregious,” he said, because weak LLC verification and self-reported information let operators quickly set up child care or autism businesses and submit claims with little scrutiny.
The losses can run into millions before detection, Talcove said, because programs spending trillions of taxpayer dollars often lack enough investigators and third-party audits to catch fraud early.
Talcove said probes should treat benefit fraud as a national security threat, alleging some proceeds fund drugs, sex trafficking and overseas criminal groups including Chinese-linked APT41 and actors from North Korea.
The Trump administration launched an anti-fraud task force this year after Minnesota’s Feeding Our Future case, which allegedly stole $250 million from a pandemic child nutrition program.