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As the pandemic shuttered businesses and forced people out of work, the federal government sent a flood of relief money into programs aimed at helping the newly unemployed and boosting the economy. That included $3.1 trillion that former President Donald J. Trump approved in 2020, followed by a $1.9 trillion package signed into law in 2021 by President Biden. But those dollars came with few strings and minimal oversight, the New York Times reported. The result: one of the largest frauds in American history, with billions of dollars stolen by thousands of people, including at least one amateur who boasted of his criminal activity on YouTube. Now, prosecutors are trying to catch up. There are currently 500 people working on pandemic-fraud cases across the offices of 21 inspectors general, plus investigators from the F.B.I., the Secret Service, the Postal Inspection Service and the Internal Revenue Service. The federal government has already charged 1,500 people with defrauding pandemic-aid programs, and more than 450 people have been convicted so far. But those figures are dwarfed by the mountain of tips and leads that investigators still have to chase. Agents in the Labor Department’s inspector general’s office have 39,000 investigations going. About 50 agents in a Small Business Administration office are sorting through two million potentially fraudulent loan applications.

Ex-San Antonio attorney Christopher “Chris” Pettit has been sued for allegedly absconding with his former law clients’ money, the San Antonio Express-News reported. He’s landed in bankruptcy and he’s surrendered his law license. Pettit is also dealing with “medically related issues,” his attorney disclosed during the first hearing in Pettit’s massive bankruptcy case. Bankruptcy lawyer Michael Colvard declined to reveal his client’s medical issues but told a San Antonio judge that Pettit was referred to another lawyer who works closely with the Texas Lawyers Assistance Program. The program helps attorneys who have “substance use and other mental health issues,” according to its website. Pettit, who specialized in estate planning and personal-injury law, has been sued at least 14 times by former clients who say he stole millions of dollars from them. He has issued general denials to the allegations in some of the cases but has entered into judgments with some plaintiffs — agreeing to pay them actual and punitive damages. Pettit and his law firm filed for chapter 11 protection June 1, essentially putting a hold on the pending litigation. He listed $27.8 million in assets and $115.2 million in liabilities in his personal bankruptcy, making it one of the largest ever filed in San Antonio. He has given up his law license in lieu of disciplinary action by the State Bar of Texas. Bankruptcy Judge Craig Gargotta agreed to the appointment of a chapter 11 trustee, who will essentially act as a CEO or manager to shepherd the bankruptcy cases and appoint professionals, including forensic accountants to track down money and other assets for the benefit of Pettit’s former clients and other creditors.

Faithfully, by 2:30 a.m. on Fridays, Frantz Victorin said he received at least a 5 percent return from EminiFX, an online investment platform that said people could get rich investing in cryptocurrency and the foreign exchange markets, also known as forex, the Washington Post reported. EminiFX chief executive Eddy Alexandre would explain that investors could withdraw their profits and use the money to pay their mortgage, car note or other bills. Or, they could reinvest the returns, Victorin said. “Everybody got paid,” Victorin said. “They got their profit in their e-wallet.” Alexandre, who is also the founder, president and sole owner of EminiFX, was charged in connection with running a Ponzi scheme, according to a complaint filed in the Southern District of New York. The profits people believe they were making were not real, the complaint said. But to this community, Alexandre was like a shepherd leading a flock to what they hoped would be life-changing fortunes. The weekly returns were so big and consistent, a minimum of 5 percent and sometimes almost 10 percent, that Victorin projected he would become a millionaire after a little less than a year. “EminiFX is your sure path to financial freedom,” the company website promised. It was an appealing pitch that brought in millions of dollars from thousands of investors. The FBI says the purported proprietary trading platform used by EminiFX was a fraud and that Alexandre was operating a cryptocurrency and foreign exchange Ponzi-like scheme that collected more than $59 million starting in September 2021 until he was taken into custody by the FBI in May. The Justice Department complaint alleges the platform only invested a relatively small percentage of investor funds and misdirected around $14.7 million to his personal bank account. A separate complaint by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission alleges that only about $9 million of the $59 million raised from investors appears to have been sent to a futures commission merchant for trading purposes. The complaint alleges that trading by Alexandre at an online brokerage racked up over $6 million in losses.

Lawyers with the Securities and Exchange Commission have served a subpoena on Archegos Capital Management, the $10 billion family investment office that suddenly collapsed in March, roiling the stock market as its losses reverberated through the banking industry, the New York Times reported. The issuance of a subpoena is not particularly surprising as lawyers from the SEC, the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have been looking into the collapse of Archegos since its heavy bets on a small number of stocks rapidly unraveled seven months ago. Even so, the subpoena marks the transition to a formal investigation. Investigators are focusing mainly on whether Archegos’s founder, Bill Hwang, misled the banks through which he invested in sophisticated derivatives about the risk he was taking on at his firm. The SEC is also believed to be looking into whether Archegos violated any regulating rules that would have required the firm to disclose some of its hefty stock position. In appearances before Congress, Gary Gensler, the SEC’s chair, has said that the Archegos trading debacle revealed gaps in the regulatory requirements for investment firms and lightly-regulated family offices when it comes to disclosing big positions in derivatives.