BP has admitted it is ‘likely’ that its compensation plan is being abused by fraudsters.

The company said it has set up verification centres examining several hundred cases and vowed it will catch anyone who milked the system.

A spokesman for BP said that up to ten per cent of compensation cases after any given disaster could be viewed as fraudulent.

Speaking of massive fraud, remember Shirley Sherrod?  Concerning the lawsuit against the USDA that resulted in her government position:

An additional 80,000 African-Americans who have also claimed to have been discriminated against by USDA staff. came forward after the judgement was rendered.

… Settling this case is clearly a priority for the White House and USDA. Secretary Vilsack described the funding agreement reached between the Administration and advocates for black farmers early this year as “an important milestone in putting these discriminatory claims behind us for good and in achieving finality for this group of farmers with longstanding grievances.”

…Already, the number of people who have been paid and are still seeking payment will likely exceed the 26,785 black farmers who were considered to even be operating back in 1997, according to USDA. That’s the year the case initially began as Pigford v. (then Agriculture Secretary) Glickman and sources predicted that, at most, 3,000 might qualify.

At least one source who is extremely familiar with the issue and who asked to remain anonymous because of potential retribution, says there are a number of legitimate cases who have long been denied their payments and will benefit from the additional funding. But many more appear to have been solicited in an attempt to “game” the Pigford system.

 

Reports released by the Government Accountability Office and the Homeland Security Department’s office of inspector general detail a series of accounting flaws, fraud or mismanagement in their initial review of how $85 billion in federal aid is being spent.  Hindsight is 20/20.

The two audits found that up to 900,000 of the 2.5 million applicants who received aid under FEMA’s emergency cash assistance program, which included the $2,000 debit cards given to evacuees , were based on duplicate or invalid Social Security numbers, or false addresses and names.  

Separately, federal prosecutors have filed fraud, theft and other charges against 212 people accused of scams related to Gulf Coast hurricanes.  Many defendants were accused of trying to obtain emergency aid, typically a $2,000 debit card, issued to hurricane victims by FEMA and the American Red Cross.