A Memphis rapper stole $1.2 million in unemployment benefits and turned the crime into a music video.
Half a million people watched it before the feds showed up.
What Congress just promised to do to the fraudsters still posting their step-by-step guides online will end their careers.
How Pelosi's No-Verification Welfare Fraud Loophole Cost Taxpayers $135 Billion
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer crowed about the CARES Act like they'd saved America.
What they actually built was the largest self-service theft machine in American history.
The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program required no proof of employment.
No income verification and no identity documents.
Just a self-certification – meaning you typed your name and collected federal cash.
Republicans in the House Ways and Means Committee warned in November 2020 that the program was hemorrhaging billions to criminal organizations, an American rapper, prison inmates, and identity thieves.
House Democrats responded by proposing to make it even easier to collect – adding hold harmless provisions for people who didn't even bother to re-certify their benefits.
The GAO eventually confirmed what Republicans already knew: self-certification contributed to nearly $50 billion in improper PUA payments alone.
The total pandemic unemployment fraud bill landed between $100 billion and $135 billion.
That's your money.
Memphis rapper Nuke Bizzle – real name Fontrell Antonio Baines – stole $1.2 million in unemployment benefits using stolen identities and rapped about it on YouTube.
"I just woke up to 300 Gs," he bragged. "Stole 60K off an SBA. It's time to ball like the NBA."
The Justice Department charged him, and a federal judge handed him six years and five months in prison.
Venezuelan TikToker Leonel Moreno sneaked into the country illegally – crediting "Papa Biden" – and filmed himself flashing a wad of $100 bills.
"I didn't cross the Rio Grande to work," he told his followers.
The Trump administration deported him.
Miami-based Danielle Miller called herself a con artist in New York Magazine and meant it as a compliment.
She stole more than $1 million from the Small Business Administration using stolen identities, then posted the results – Chanel, Gucci, Prada, private jets, a Rolls-Royce convertible – across social media for her followers to admire.
"You can literally go to a dot-com website and join a group of scammers," she told the magazine. "There's a bunch of chats of people just selling SBA information."
A Boston judge gave her five years.
A Florida judge separately handed her 16 more.
Georgia native Jonathan Dupiton ran a podcast with the motto "F.R.A.U.D. is Dope" – standing for "Finally Rich After Unstoppable Determination" – while already serving time in a halfway house for food stamp fraud.
He stole at least $3 million in unemployment benefits
Seven more years.
Louisiana's Koya Unek was the most direct of all.
"People be like, 'Girl, how do you get food stamps?'" she explained to her TikTok audience. "B****, you better start lying."
Police watched the video and arrested her.
Senator Joni Ernst has seen enough.
The Iowa Republican who chairs the DOGE Caucus is building the legal infrastructure to make the next wave of fraud-fluencers regret their content strategy.
"Scammers I've deemed 'fraud-fluencers' are putting the 'con' in online content and flooding their followers' feeds with step-by-step guides on how to exploit government programs and steal your hard-earned taxpayer dollars," Ernst told the New York Post.
In April, she led Republicans in unveiling the Protecting American Taxpayers Act – 17 bills packaged into one weapon against government theft.
The package extends the statute of limitations for COVID-era crimes, rescinds $65 billion in unspent pandemic funds, creates a task force targeting deepfake fraud, and pays bonuses to government watchdogs who catch thieves.
Senate Majority Leader Thune tapped Ernst personally to lead the effort after the Minnesota welfare scandal – the one where Tim Walz presided over $9 billion in blown oversight while fraudsters funneled money to luxury hotels and overseas accounts.
Ernst put the daily number on the table: fraudsters are stealing $1.4 billion from American taxpayers every single day.
The Trump administration is already moving.
President Trump's Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, chaired by Vice President JD Vance, has begun freezing payments to hundreds of suspicious providers.
"If these fraud-fluencers want to be famous, I'm happy to make their wish come true by sharing their posts with the investigators at GAO," Ernst told the New York Post. "We've got to ratio the folks running these rackets and make their next profile pic a mugshot."
Pelosi handed them the keys.
Trump and Ernst are changing the locks.
Sources:
- Ryan King, "Fraud-fluencers crow online about stealing from taxpayers as senator demands crackdown," New York Post, June 5, 2026.
- U.S. Government Accountability Office, "Unemployment Insurance: Estimated Amount of Fraud During Pandemic Likely Between $100 Billion and $135 Billion," GAO, September 2023.
- House Ways and Means Committee Republicans, "The Way Forward on Unemployment: Stop Criminals from Diverting Billions Away from Unemployed American Workers," November 16, 2020.
- House Ways and Means Committee Republicans, "Watchdog Finds Self-Certification Contributed to Nearly $50 Billion in Improper Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Payments," August 7, 2024.
- Natalia Mittelstadt, "Sen. Joni Ernst leads Republicans in anti-fraud package to save $240 billion," The National News Desk, April 22, 2026.
- U.S. Senator Joni Ernst, "Ernst Exposes the Inside Jobs Enabling Fraud," ernst.senate.gov, May 2026.
- The Daily Signal, "Targeting COVID Scams, Welfare Fraud: Ernst's Package Aims to Save Taxpayers $240B," April 24, 2026.
