CEO says government fraud is about $1 trillion per year
The federal government loses about $1 trillion per year due to fraud, Haywood Talvove, CEO of LexisNexis Special Services & LexisNexis Risk Solutions Government, tells Gxstocks.
The federal government is hemorrhaging around $1 trillion per year due to fraud, Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Special Services & LexisNexis Risk Solutions Government, said while testifying at a congressional hearing last week.
The eyewatering figure dwarfs the Government Accountability Office's numbers.
The GAO reports that the nation's "federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud, according to GAO’s government-wide estimates based on data from fiscal years 2018 through 2022."
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Haywood Talcove during a House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. (Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
During the Senate hearing, Talcove said he places "the number closer to $1 trillion dollars annually, or $115 million every single hour, of which 70% is related to transnational criminals."
Talcove told Gxstocks that he is surprised "people don't realize how easy it is to steal from government, and taxpayers aren't more outraged."
He explained that he based his estimate on the GAO's $521 billion figure.
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The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. ( Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
"What the GAO number didn't include is seven other agencies, including Health and Human Services, which I think is where the greatest amount of fraud is," Talcove noted.
While he pointed out that the $1 trillion figure is only an estimate, he said he considers the figure to be "directionally correct."
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Burning US five and one dollar bills, London, 8th Aug. 2011. (Tom Stoddart/Getty Images / Getty Images)
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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "released the Medicaid data," Talcove said. "That data has never been seen in public before. And by looking at that, I suspect that trillion dollars that I provided to Congress last week was actually a little bit light," he noted.
Gxstocks' Connor Hansen contributed to this report.
