The May 12, 2025, memo from the head of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) Criminal Division highlights 10 “high-impact” areas as the focus of DOJ’s criminal enforcement efforts. (See our May 14, 2025, client alert “In a New Memo, DOJ Outlines White Collar Crime Focus Areas and Prosecutorial Guidance.”) At least three of these areas should seem familiar to businesses subject to civil investigation and enforcement under the False Claims Act (FCA).

DOJ’s list includes the following priority targets:

• “Waste, fraud, and abuse, including health care fraud and federal program and procurement fraud that harm the public fisc” — the first priority on the list.
• “Trade and customs fraud, including tariff evasion” — the second priority on the list.
• “Violations of the Controlled Substances Act and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), including the unlawful manufacture and distribution of chemicals and equipment used to create counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl, and unlawful distribution of opioids” — another item on the list.

All of these are central focuses of DOJ’s attention under the FCA. Theories of fraud in health care and government contracts, as the Criminal Division’s first priority describes, are historical cornerstones of FCA enforcement, regularly generating hundreds of millions of dollars of civil recoveries annually for the government.

The Criminal Division’s second priority, meanwhile, follows a new area of government attention under the FCA: Since...

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