U.S. Attorney’s Office responsible for over $31 million in collections and forfeitures in fiscal year 2023

ATLANTA – U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan announced that the Northern District of Georgia was responsible for collections and forfeitures of over $31 million in Fiscal Year 2023.

“This district maintains an unwavering commitment to securing financial justice for victims of crime and United States taxpayers,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan.  “As this prior fiscal year’s results reflect, this district will vigorously pursue the recovery of money for crime victims and the public through all available legal means, whether by collecting criminal and civil monetary penalties, civilly pursuing those who seek to take unlawful advantage of federal agencies and programs or identifying and forfeiting ill-gotten gains.”

Our office collected more than $22 million through the district’s Financial Litigation Program, which is responsible for the collection of civil and criminal debts, fines, and monetary penalties due to victims of crime and the United States.   Specifically, our office obtained $8.4 million in restitution, fines and/or assessments imposed against defendants in criminal cases.  Federal law requires that defendants who commit certain crimes pay restitution to the victims of those crimes. Criminal fines and assessments paid by defendants go to the Department of Justice’s Crime Victims Fund, which distributes the funds to federal and state victim compensation and victim assistance programs. 

We also collected $13.7 million in affirmative civil enforcement cases.  The United States initiates affirmative civil enforcement cases to recover government money lost to fraud or other misconduct, or to collect fines imposed on individuals and/or corporations for violations of federal health care, safety, or environmental laws and controlled substance regulations, among other laws.

In addition, the district deposited over $9.4 million dollars into the Department of Justice’s Asset Forfeiture Fund and Treasury Forfeiture Fund through civil and criminal forfeiture actions handled by the office’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section.  Of the total amount forfeited, more than $3 million was forfeited in civil forfeiture cases and over $6 million was forfeited in criminal cases.  The Department of Justice uses forfeited property to compensate crime victims as well as for a variety of other law enforcement purposes, and shares these proceeds with federal, state and local law enforcement partners.  In Fiscal Year 2023, $343,870 was returned to crime victims and over $1.4 million was shared with the district’s law enforcement partners.

This office also shared in the recovery of an additional $1.4 billion resulting from the settlement of the UBS civil action for misconduct related to UBS’ underwriting and issuance of residential mortgage-backed securities in 2006 and 2007 brought under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act by a Department of Justice Working Group dedicated to investigating banks and other entities for their roles in creating and issuing residential mortgage-backed securities leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.

For further information please contact the U.S. Attorney’s Public Affairs Office at USAGAN.PressEmails@usdoj.gov or (404) 581-6016.  The Internet address for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia is http://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga.