The coronavirus pandemic began five years ago — which means the first round of fraudsters is about to get away with their crimes.

Unless Congress steps in, the five-year statute of limitations is about to start running out on unemployment fraud cases that arose just after Congress approved the initial round of assistance in March 2020, pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy.

Experts argue as much as 40% of that money was stolen.

But under current law, prosecutors only have five years to bring most government fraud cases, and that includes unemployment fraud. So the earliest cases are about to slide in under the wire.

Congress has been making noise about doubling the statute of limitations but hasn’t been able to come up with a compromise, though all sides seem to agree it’s a good idea.

That includes the government’s inspector general community, senior Republicans and President Biden himself, who has proposed doubling the time to 10 years, as well as letting states keep some of the fraudulent money they recover.

Sen. James Lankford, Oklahoma Republican, announced the latest legislation two weeks ago.

“Making the government more efficient isn’t a partisan issue — it’s an American issue,” he said. “Loopholes in the law let fraudsters get away with billions in COVID recovery and Unemployment Insurance payouts while forcing taxpayers to foot the bill.”

Judging by the ongoing action in the courts, there are still plenty of cases to be made.

This month alone, prosecutors in Maryland announced indictments against two men accused of bilking more than $1 million by filing unemployment benefits under stolen identities. That scam lasted from March 2020 to September 2021, authorities charged.

In New York, prosecutors charged a man they say used a stolen identity to claim benefits from September 2020 to March 2021.

And In Massachusetts, federal prosecutors announced the arrest on Dec. 13 of two Boston-area corrections officers on charges of bilking the unemployment system. One, Jasmine Murphy, even attempted to alter her identity to prevent the government from realizing she was already employed while collecting the unemployment benefits, prosecutors charged.

The government faces other critical pandemic-era expirations.

Absent a congressional extension, the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery, which polices the Main Street Lending Program, will shut down operations on March 28, five years after it was established.

That’s despite 70% of balloon loan payments coming due after that date. The inspector general said the payments already due have shown an “alarming rate of defaults.”

The problem appears to be less one of opposition and more of focus, timing and tactics.

A House GOP bill to double the unemployment statute of limitations, for example, cleared that chamber in 2023.

But nearly all Democrats opposed it, complaining about other portions of the bill. One provision trimmed money Congress had previously allocated to states to modernize their unemployment systems, while another would have pressed those who got overpayments — though not necessarily from fraud — to have to pay it back.

“Don’t punish people who may be caught up in this net that was not of their making,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Oregon Democrat, said at the time.

In the Senate, there have been multiple bills introduced — many of them bipartisan — but they haven’t seen any substantive action. One was from Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat, and Sen. Mike Crapo, Idaho Republican.

Eric Fejer, a spokesman for Mr. Crapo, said they’re still looking to take action.

“Senator Crapo is aware of the deadline and is committed to finding a solution,” he said.

The statute of limitations will probably have a small effect early on, given that those who engaged in fraud usually continued it for months and their liability lasts until five years after their last ill-gotten check.

Jordan Burris, who served as a senior technology official in the federal government and is now a vice president at Socure, a fraud-fighting company, said the statute of limitations won’t get the money back.

“They could extend it for beyond five years, they could extend it to 20 years. Many of these fraudsters are advanced nation-states and we’re not going to claw it back,” he said.

He said the fraud fiasco underscores a bigger problem with government spending: The feds are too intent on paying out cash than trying to track down and reclaim misspent money.

In terms of unemployment fraud, more than three years into the pandemic and with perhaps $300 billion in bogus payments made, just $1.2 billion had been recovered, according to the Government Accountability Office.

“Our mindset needs to shift from going after and getting back money we’ve already lost,” Mr. Burris said. “Our efforts need to go toward prevention.”

Under existing law, for example, even if a state has deemed an unemployment case to be likely fraud, payments must be restarted within two weeks if the claimant appeals a state’s determination and the state can’t hold a hearing before the deadline.

Mr. Lankford has introduced legislation to strike that automatic payout restoration.

Congress has already acted to double the statute of limitations for pandemic fraud cases involving small business loans, creating a 10-year window for prosecutions.

For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.