U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took steps to combat Somali fraud on Friday with a new anonymous reporting portal for whistleblowers, offering monetary rewards for those who expose the theft of public funds.
“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,” said Bessent on X.
“At Treasury, we follow the money. We did it with the mafia, we have done it with the cartels, and we’re doing it with the Somali fraudsters. We are going to offer whistleblower payments to anyone who wants to tell us the who, what, when, where, and how this fraud and money laundering has occurred,” he added.
Bessent clarified in an interview with CNBC that rewards for whistleblowers could range between 10% and 30% of the fines levied against fraudsters.
With fraudsters stealing millions of dollars from taxpayer-funded welfare programs like Medicaid by billing for services that never took place, rewards for whistleblowers could be extremely substantial and may cause fraudsters to turn on each other.
“We know that these rats will turn on each other,” said Bessent in an interview on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”
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