Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos has partnered with Crime Stoppers to encourage residents to report what she called pervasive fraud in public assistance programs in the county, including welfare, food stamps and unemployment benefits.
"We estimate there are millions of dollars being paid to people who are not needy. They are simply greedy," Lykos said Wednesday. "Benefits fraud hurts the truly vulnerable and cheats taxpayers."
She added: "Show us the fraud, and we'll show you the money."
Lykos estimated some of the millions in fraudulent benefits are circulating on Harris County streets and are being used by local and transnational gang members, and others, to finance criminal lifestyles.
Lykos cited a recent Houston Chronicle series that showed how 397 private ambulance companies operating in Harris County billed Medicare $62 million for transporting non-emergency patients to private community clinics.
John Moore, who heads the Regulatory Integrity Division of the Texas Work Force Commission, said 23 people were prosecuted in Harris County last year for defrauding $84,000 from the agency. Those individuals included a working school teacher who was claiming unemployment but was arrested as she boarded a cruise ship, and a full-time Houston police officer who was receiving child care assistance, he said.
Katherine Cabaniss, executive director of Crime Stoppers in Houston, said the Harris County project is the first time in the nation the successful tip program has been used to obtain leads on benefits fraud. The calls are screened by police officers, and if the tips lead to the arrest or felony charges Crime Stoppers provides cash awards of up to $5,000.
Others agencies participating in Crime Stoppers project include the Social Security Administration, Medicaid, U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, Texas Health and Human Services, and the federal departments of Education, Veteran's Affairs, Homeland Security and Agriculture.
"It's not just the theft and the deprivation of people truly in need, and the cheating of the taxpayer," Lykos said. "It's where this money goes and how it goes into organized criminal activity. So you have this anti-social behavior that's being financed with our tax dollars."
