Bessent: Treasury Returned $175M Before Payments Reached Deceased Recipients, Stopped Nearly $190M in Overseas Fraud

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday detailed the Trump administration's escalating crackdown on fraud, announcing that Treasury has returned $175 million in payments that would have gone to deceased individuals and stopped almost $190 million in overseas fraud schemes.

Speaking at a press conference in St. Cloud, Minnesota, alongside FBI Director Kash Patel, CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson and Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald, Bessent said more than $100 million has been returned to U.S. victims of overseas fraud, and that Treasury has ordered an audit of approximately $9 billion in Treasury contracts.

"Nowhere is this work more urgent than here in Minnesota," Bessent said, pointing to the state's sprawling fraud scandals involving federal assistance programs. Federal law enforcement executed 17 search warrants across Minnesota as part of the coordinated crackdown, and the IRS is assisting the investigations.

Bessent said the administration has uncovered more than $260 billion in fraud since January 2025, prevented $72 billion in taxpayer funds from going out the door to illicit actors annually, and brought enforcement actions involving nearly $60 billion. The effort is coordinated by a task force led by Vice President JD Vance, which first convened in March.

Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has also issued a Geographic Targeting Order to trace criminal networks diverting funds overseas, and Treasury said it is expanding Do Not Pay access from 4 to 99 percent of federal programs. Together with the IRS, the department is proposing stronger eligibility checks for health insurance tax credits.

WATCH: U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent holds press conference in Minnesota on the Trump administration's war on fraud: https://x.com/USTreasury/status/2116226058945192241