J. David McSwane is an investigative journalist. He recently published a book called Pandemic, Inc.: Chasing the Capitalists and Thieves Who Got Rich While We Got Sick. He has chased state relief resources during the time of the pandemic. The report shows a lot of contracts signed to obtain critical goods that were part of fraud schemes. The report says that the US administration even received some unusable pieces of equipment too during that time.
The Deal
During the last 2 years of the pandemic, McSwane took the decision to trail the money. The investigation started with an anonymous federal contractor. The contractor finalised a deal worth USD 35 million just for masks when there was a limited supply of masks. The contractor, out of nowhere, was providing 6 million masks on his own during the crisis period. During the investigation, McSwane started wondering whether all these were nothing but a way to fraud the government.
The Unknown
Before the investigation, people knew nothing about all these ongoing crises. But McSwane realised that people have rights to information; they need to know. So, the process begins. It took more than a year to collect all the data. Not just government contractors were involved in it, there were a lot of people operating within the space for opportunity. The chaos started in the centre, and gradually became a part of every state and city. There were a lot of people involved in the fraud who were taking benefit of an emergency.
The Process
The central government just thought that they will give contracts to the people and people will deliver the service. But brokers and investors got involved in the process. And they saw the opportunity that the government was willing to pay more for a mask that only costs USD 1. Interestingly, the contractor did not receive any money because he did not deliver the service. Now the person is charged with fraud.
McSwane’s report shows how some people may start playing with the lives of others during a pandemic just to make some money.
