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WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 ? Thousands of applicants for federal emergency relief money after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita used duplicate or invalid Social Security numbers or bogus addresses, suggesting that the $2.3 billion program was a victim of extensive fraud, a Congressional auditor will report Monday.

The examination of the so-called Expedited Assistance program determined that the Federal Emergency Management Agency failed to take even the most basic steps to confirm the identifies of about 1.4 million people who sought expedited cash assistance, leaving the program vulnerable to the “significant fraud and abuse,” the Government Accountability Office intends to report.

The auditors did not try to estimate the total dollar amount of fraudulent claims. But the report says that FEMA itself had found that 900,000 of the 2.5 million applications for all forms of individual assistance were “potential duplicates.”
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Nearly half of the 11,000 individuals who received special debit cards as payment ? an approach used in the immediate aftermath of the storm in Texas ? got a second $2,000 payment in emergency aid.
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Auditors found isolated instances where the electronic debit cards were used to pay for “adult entertainment,” a .45-caliber handgun, jewelry or bail bond services.
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