Brian Dake

The release of COVID-19 federal relief funds has unleashed a wave of individuals and criminal networks responsible for what the Secret Service says is nearly $100 billion in stolen benefits.

The Secret Service has tapped Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAIC) Roy Dotson to lead the pandemic fraud recovery effort. In this role, Dotson is coordinating with financial institutions and money services businesses, U.S. attorney offices, and other federal agencies.

According to Dotson, who is based in the Jacksonville field office, the Secret Service has more than 900 active criminal investigations into pandemic-related relief fraud.

The Secret Service has established a Cyber Fraud Task Force (CFTF), partnering with federal and state, local, tribal, and territorial partners, as well as foreign law enforcement, academic, and private sector partners.

Part of these efforts will also include spearheading cryptocurrency investigations centering on unsuspecting money mules who have moved stolen funds from one account to another – a trend that also picked up during the pandemic, according to Dotson.

As of December 2021, the Secret Service says it has recovered more than $1.2 billion and returned more than $2.3 billion of fraudulently obtained funds through automated clearing house reversals. Amid these investigations, approximately 100 people have been arrested on loan fraud charges.

President Biden is signing an executive order on Monday intended to cut back on the bureaucracy around government services for the public such as renewing their passports, applying for loans or changing their name.

The order, which Biden will sign on Monday afternoon, affects 36 “customer experience improvement commitments” across 17 federal agencies. The order targets various government services dealing with travel, retirement, business, health and updating personal information, according to a White House fact sheet.

For example, the order will call for a streamlined enrollment experience for retirees looking to enroll in Social Security, and it will allow retirees to more easily claim benefits online.

Taxpayers will be given new online tools to make filing more easy, and filers will have the option to schedule customer service call-backs instead of waiting on hold.

The order will call for Americans to be able to renew their passports online rather than dealing with print forms, and it will aim to streamline the process for travelers with urgent questions for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

The order will also aim to ease the bureaucracy around both student loans and business loans.

The order will create a single portal for the millions of individuals with student loan debt, and small business owners will have a more streamlined process for working with the Small Business Administration on loans, grants and certifications.

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) has been awarded a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to support its comprehensive upgrade and modernization of the Job Center of Wisconsin system and an internal case management system to better connect job seekers with employment opportunities.

The Comprehensive and Accessible Reemployment through Equitable Employment Recovery National Dislocated Worker grant will benefit workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent labor market disruption. DOL announced the availability of $43 million nationwide for the grant in June 2021, with a maximum award of $3 million.

The projects are expected to be implemented by late 2023. The work represents another major component of DWD’s comprehensive effort to improve service for customers – employers, job seekers, current employees and those experiencing disruption in their employment. In recent months, DWD also has introduced improvements to its virtual Job Center of Wisconsin, added a chatbot feature to help job seekers and employers connect, entered into a partnership with Google Cloud to expedite processing of unemployment insurance claims; and contracted with Flexion to overhaul its legacy Unemployment Insurance processing system.

The United States has agreed to reduce tariffs on EU steel in return for a relaxation of counter-tariffs on US products, both sides said.

The European Union and the United States have reached an agreement to rein in tit-for-tat tariffs that date back to the Trump administration, officials announced on Saturday.

More European-made steel will enter the United States while the EU will tax motorcycles, bourbon whiskey, peanut butter and jeans at only 25% instead of a proposed 50%.

The agreement would make sure “that all steel entering the US via Europe is produced entirely in Europe,” US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo added. This would stop Chinese subsidized steel being processed in Europe before being sent to the US.

While US officials did not say how much steel would be imported from the EU, sources told Reuters news agency that annual volumes above 3.3 million tons would be subject to tariffs.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers offered a plan Wednesday to repeal a tax on businesses even though he vetoed legislation to do just that less than two months ago.

Republicans who control the Legislature called the move hypocritical. Evers said he was offering a better plan to end the state’s personal property tax than the one he vetoed, which he has said was drafted in a “haphazard” fashion.

“This legislation will continue our efforts to support businesses and families as they bounce back from the pandemic while ensuring our local governments have the aid they need to remain whole,” Evers said in a statement.

Republican Sen. Duey Stroebel of Saukville, a longtime backer of the effort to end the personal property tax, said the way Evers rolled out his plan “has all the hallmarks of political cover and not serious legislating.”

Republicans who control the Legislature this summer approved a bill to end the personal property tax alongside the state budget. The budget included a provision to provide local governments with state payments to cover revenue losses that would be caused by ending the tax.

Evers vetoed the bill to end the personal property tax because he said Republicans wrote it in a way that could have resulted in an additional tax break for utilities.

He said at the time he backed ending the personal property tax and approved the budget provision that set aside funds for local governments. He now wants to tap into that account for his plan to end the personal property tax.

In a news release, Stroebel accused Evers of “political posturing” and said his plan would treat outdoor advertisers and the makers of manufactured homes unfairly.

Evers said the new legislation was better than the bill he vetoed because it would ensure local governments would receive inflationary increases in state aid to cover their revenue losses.

 Attorney General Josh Kaul is advising Wisconsinites to be aware of ever-evolving ransomware threats. To date, the FBI has received 41 ransomware reports in Wisconsin this year, compared to 30 reports total in 2020.

“As technological threats continue to evolve and become more sophisticated, DOJ’s Cyber Unit remains committed to investigating cybercrimes throughout Wisconsin,” said Attorney General Kaul. “All of us can help combat the threat of ransomware by taking a few precautions: not clicking on links or attachments from unverified sources, using unique, complex passwords, and installing computer updates regularly.”

Ransomware is a type of malicious software cyber actors use to deny access to systems or data. The malicious cyber actor holds systems or data hostage until the ransom is paid. After the initial infection, the ransomware attempts to spread to shared storage drives and other accessible systems. If the demands are not met, the system or encrypted data remains unavailable.

A person may unknowingly download ransomware onto a computer by executing one of the following actions embedded with malware: opening an email attachment, clicking an advertisement, following a link, or visiting a website. Cyber actors continue to evolve their ransomware tactics over time to extort organizations and citizens. Awareness of these tactics is important to avoid unnecessary exposure.

Cyber-attacks may be prevented by following the Department of Homeland Security – Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) best practices for managing risks posed by ransomware: https://www.cisa.gov/stopransomware. To learn more, visit the CISA Ransomware Guide at, https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/CISA_MS-ISAC_Ransomware%20Guide_S508C.pdf

Victims of ransomware attacks are encouraged to resist any urge to fulfill a ransom request. Compliance in response to a ransom does not guarantee the captured data will be returned. Compliance also encourages perpetrators to target more victims and offers an incentive for other cyber actors to get involved in this type of illegal activity.

If you believe you are a victim of a ransomware attack:

• Contact Wisconsin DOJ’s Cyber Unit https://wifusion.widoj.gov/
• Contact your local Federal Bureau of Investigation Field Office (FBI) https://www.ic3.gov/

Orders for big-ticket items slipped last month as manufacturers continued to navigate a supply chain crunch that has resulted in higher materials costs.

New orders for manufactured durable goods in July fell 0.1% to a seasonally adjusted $257.2 billion, according to the Census Bureau. Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 0.7%. They fell 1.2% when excluding defense.

Supply chain disruptions that were caused by factories shutting down in an attempt to help slow the spread of COVID-19 resulted in unfilled orders increasing for a sixth straight month, rising 0.3% to $1.225 trillion. Unfilled machinery orders, which have increased 16 straight months, rose by $2.3 billion to $109.2 billion.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) announced a final extension of the pause on student loan repayment, interest, and collections until January 31, 2022. The Department believes this additional time and a definitive end date will allow borrowers to plan for the resumption of payments and reduce the risk of delinquency and defaults after restart. The Department will continue its work to transition borrowers smoothly back into repayment, including by improving student loan servicing.

“The payment pause has been a lifeline that allowed millions of Americans to focus on their families, health, and finances instead of student loans during the national emergency,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “As our nation’s economy continues to recover from a deep hole, this final extension will give students and borrowers the time they need to plan for restart and ensure a smooth pathway back to repayment. It is the Department’s priority to support students and borrowers during this transition and ensure they have the resources they need to access affordable, high quality higher education.”

The Department will begin notifying borrowers about this final extension in the coming days, and it will release resources and information about how to plan for payment restart as the end of the pause approaches.

The Biden administration announced Thursday it will allow a nationwide ban on evictions to expire Saturday, arguing that its hands are tied after the Supreme Court signaled the moratorium would only be extended until the end of the month.

The White House said President Joe Biden would have liked to extend the federal eviction moratorium due to spread of the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus. Instead, Biden called on “Congress to extend the eviction moratorium to protect such vulnerable renters and their families without delay.”

“Given the recent spread of the delta variant, including among those Americans both most likely to face evictions and lacking vaccinations, President Biden would have strongly supported a decision by the CDC to further extend this eviction moratorium to protect renters at this moment of heightened vulnerability,” the White House said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has made clear that this option is no longer available.”

The court mustered a bare 5-4 majority last month, to allow the eviction ban to continue through the end of July. One of those in the majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, made clear he would block any additional extensions unless there was “clear and specific congressional authorization.”