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2/28/2024

Treasury Announces Enhanced Fraud Detection Process Using AI Recovers $375M in Fiscal Year 2023 | U.S. Departmen…

Treasury Announces Enhanced Fraud Detection Process Using AI
Recovers $375M in Fiscal Year 2023
February 28, 2024

Treasuryʼs O ice of Payment Integrity Began Using AI to Deal with Increased Fraud Since the
Pandemic
WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced that it has recovered
over $375 million as a result of its implementation of an enhanced fraud detection process
that utilizes Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the beginning of Fiscal Year 2023. Check fraud has
increased nationwide by 385% since the pandemic. To address the increase in fraud,
Treasuryʼs O ice of Payment Integrity (OPI), within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (Fiscal
Service), implemented an enhanced process using AI to mitigate check fraud in near real-time
by strengthening and expediting processes to recover potentially fraudulent payments from
financial institutions.
“The Treasury Department is committed to safeguarding taxpayer dollars through payment
integrity – paying the right person, in the right amount, at the right time, and ensuring that
Social Security payments, tax refunds, and other types of checks, and people who are
receiving them, are safe from fraud,” said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo.
“We are using the latest technological advances to enhance our fraud detection process, and
AI has allowed us to expedite the detection of fraud and recovery of tax dollars.”
In 2021, financial institutions filed over 350,000 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) to FinCEN
to report potential check fraud, a 23% increase over the number of check fraud-related SARs
filed in 2020. This upward trend continued into 2022, when the number of SARs related to
check fraud reached over 680,000, nearly double from the previous yearʼs filings. Incidents of
Treasury check fraud are also on the rise. The enhanced AI process and OPIʼs strong
partnership with federal law enforcement agencies have led to multiple active cases and
arrests with law enforcement.

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https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2134

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2/28/2024

Treasury Announces Enhanced Fraud Detection Process Using AI Recovers $375M in Fiscal Year 2023 | U.S. Departmen…

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2134

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