Stout was engaged by the Fraud Section of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to support the detection and investigation efforts related to potential fraud in two of the largest federal relief initiatives under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act: the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program. These programs were critical in delivering emergency financial assistance to small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, but they also became targets for fraudulent activity due to the speed and scale of disbursement.

Over the course of more than two years, our role involved leveraging advanced data analytics, forensic accounting, and investigative methodologies to examine and assess millions of loan records and related data sets. This included the development and application of fraud detection models to identify loans exhibiting indicia of borrower fraud. Our work helped prioritize high-risk loans for further investigation and contributed to identifying patterns of organized fraud schemes.