The US government is defrauded of billions of dollars each year. This means that you, the US Public, are being defrauded of billions of dollars each year. Fortunately, thanks to Abraham Lincoln, there is a powerful law in place to enable the federal government and whistleblowers to go after fraudsters and recover the US Public’s money and punish the wrongdoers.
The False Claims Act (FCA) is a federal law that prohibits any person or company from submitting, or causing to be submitted, a false claim for payment to the United States government.
The Act also imposes liability on companies who retain overpayments from the government. A company who received an overpayment from the government must report and return the overpayment. Even conspiring to defraud the US government is an FCA violation.
The FCA allows whistleblowers to report fraudulent activity by companies doing business with the government and to receive a portion of any damages awarded in a successful lawsuit.
The law is colloquially known as the “qui tam” statute because a private individual can bring suit on behalf of the government.
Since its enactment in 1863, the FCA has been amended multiple times and has been used to recover billions of dollars from those who have defrauded the government.
The FCA has helped the government recover about $70 billion from those who defrauded the US public.
This number is actually a conservative estimate, as it only includes cases that were successfully prosecuted and doesn’t take into account the money that was saved as a result of avoided fraud. In other words, if you look at the amount of money that the government could have lost if these schemes had been successful, the actual amount of money recovered is likely much higher.
In Fiscal year 2021, the DOJ recovered $5.6 billion from fraudsters under the FCA.
Rewards under the FCA are designed to incentivize people with knowledge of fraud against the government to come forward and report it (using the procedural channels specified in the Act). In general, a whistleblower can receive between 15% and 30% of the government’s recovery as a reward, depending on how helpful their information is in stopping the fraud and if they were the original source and first to file the claim.
If you or anyone you know has information about fraud against the government that you believe the government or public do not know about, contact us at Whistleblowers International. Our whistleblower attorney and investigators may be able to help you secure a monetary reward. Your consultation is 100% confidential and we do not charge you anything until and unless we secure you a monetary reward.