Fraud is 4,000 times easier to commit today than 50 years ago: Frank Abagnale of 'Catch Me If You Can'

Frank Abagnale, former fraudster and the subject of "Catch Me If You Can," said that committing fraud is 4,000 times easier today than 50 years ago Saturday on "One Nation."

FRANK ABAGNALE: … [I]t's 4,000 times easier to commit fraud today than when I did it 50 years ago. 50 years ago when I was caught they sent me to prison with a 12-year prison sentence in federal prison. Today, I believe if I was caught I’d probably serve no time, so if they’re not actually sending people to prison for burglary, robbery, assault, murder. I don’t think people are very concerned about ripping somebody off and getting caught and actually having to serve time. So the reward is great, but there is very little threat of having to pay back, or serve any time for those crimes.  

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[T]he problem with the unemployment insurance, [Paycheck Protection Program], the government gave $860 billion to the 50 states but said they were not liable for any fraud that may occur. So the states had to go hire hundreds of people to disperse that money, and they weren’t checking anything. You could simply say you work somewhere, you earn so much, and take someone’s identity; no one ever checked it out. So criminals realized, "Who has all the money?" The government. "Who is the easiest person to steal from?" The government. So the government’s become a big target of criminals and just everyday people because they know that they can do it, and they know they can get away with it, and the government does very little to prevent it. No bank or company in America could exist losing $80 billion to fraud. They’d go out of business. But the government continuously does that with Medicare fraud, unemployment fraud, the PP[P] fraud.

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