EXCLUSIVE: GAO Launches Probe Into Social Media Fraud Playbooks Amid Federal Crackdown

FIRST ON DAILY SIGNAL–Fraudsters who used podcasts, TikTok, and other platforms to boast and give tutorials on how to steal from the federal government now face an investigation by the arm of Congress that reviews wasteful spending.

The Government Accountability Office will review online forums where people share tips on how to defraud federal agencies, namely the Small Business Administration, the office stated in a letter last week to Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, chair of the Senate Small Business Committee. Some of the bragging culprits have already been charged.

David Powner, the GAO’s acting managing director for congressional relations, wrote that the office would “review matters related to the extent to which individuals defrauding the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) share their fraud tactics, particularly online, and how agencies are monitoring and preventing the dissemination of these tactics.”

Ernst on June 2 made the request for an investigation, citing numerous examples of online boasting about fraud.

In Georgia, podcaster Jonathan Dupiton, whose motto was “F.R.A.U.D. is Dope,” with the letters being an acronym for Finally Rich After Unstoppable Determination, was sentenced in April in the Northern District of Georgia for being part of a scheme that drained $3.8 million from the California unemployment insurance system, a federal-state-funded program.

In July 2022, a rapper put his fraud into lyrics on YouTube about getting wealthy from a pandemic scheme involving unemployment insurance money he wasn’t entitled to. Fontrell Antonio Baines, 33, known as “Nuke Bizzle,” was sentenced to more than six years in prison for combined fraud, gun, and drug charges.

Ernst asked the GAO to probe the extent to which fraudsters share tips online and the effectiveness of their advice, as well as the extent to which government agencies monitor online information-sharing.

The senator is also the chair of the Senate DOGE Caucus, short for Department of Government Efficiency, which initially aimed to assist the White House DOGE efforts. Now the caucus is working with the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, chaired by Vice President JD Vance.

Some federal employees have used their positions to actively participate in fraud schemes.

In January, federal prosecutors in Georgia charged Attallah Williams with being part of a scheme to steal more than $3.5 million from four separate COVID-19 emergency relief programs by obtaining employment at both the SBA and Internal Revenue Service.

Williams pleaded guilty in February, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration’s report to Congress.

“Also, while employed as an SBA loan officer, Williams used social media to recruit individuals who, under her instructions, submitted fraudulent applications to SBA for EIDL funds,” the report said. “Williams improperly approved those applications in exchange for a share of the proceeds.”

“Williams left SBA for a position as a tax examining technician at the IRS,” the inspector general report continued. “She continued to use social media to recruit individuals who, with her assistance and instruction, submitted fraudulent tax documents to the IRS to claim payments under the Employee Retention Tax Credit program. This scheme also entailed Williams receiving a share of the proceeds.”

In her letter, Ernst specifically noted a report from 2022 about a self-described con artist named Danielle Miller who applied for 10 SBA loans and eventually received $1 million in fraudulent payments during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“You can go on Telegram and join a group of scammers, and they’re all just bragging and sending pictures,” Miller told New York Magazine in 2022. “You just put in the search for whatever you’re interested in. So say it’s SBA loans—you type in E-I-D-L or just S-B-A. And then there’s a bunch of chats of people just selling SBA information.”

In September 2023, a federal court in Boston sentenced Miller to five years in prison with three years of supervised release.