So, you thought that the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to the damage from Hurricane Katrina last year left much to be desired? Well, this NY Times article reports that a recent Congressional investigation has determined that the agency’s relief effort was stellar in comparison to its fraud management policies:

As much as $1.4 billion in government disaster aid to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita ó nearly a quarter of the total ó went to bogus or undeserving victims, a new Congressional investigation concludes. [. . .]
The improper or fraudulent payments went to a dizzying array of con artists or other undeserving recipients, according to the analysis by the Government Accountability Office, which is set to announce its findings at a hearing Wednesday.
In one case, a man stayed more than two months on the government tab at a hotel in Hawaii that cost more than $100 a night. At the same time, he was getting $2,358 in government rent assistance, even though he had not been living in the property he claimed was damaged in the storm.
Emergency aid was used to pay for football tickets, the bill at a Hooters in San Antonio, a $200 bottle of Dom Perignon, “Girls Gone Wild” videos, even an all-inclusive weeklong Caribbean vacation, the report says. More than $5 million went to people who had provided cemeteries or post office boxes as the addresses of their damaged property.
FEMA also provided cash or housing assistance to more than 1,000 prison inmates, totaling millions of dollars; one inmate used a post office box to collect $20,000. . .
In another case, 24 payments, totaling $109,708, were sent to a single apartment, where eight people each submitted requests for aid eight times, each time using their own Social Security numbers.
Another person collected 26 payments using 13 different Social Security numbers ó a total of $139,000 ó even though public records show the individual did not live at any of the addresses reported as damaged. [. . .]
Investigators concluded that fraudulent or improper payments probably ranged from $400 million to $1.4 billion, leading them to settle on $1 billion as their most likely estimate, representing about 16 percent of the distributed aid. [. . .]

Representative Michael McCaul (Rep. Tex.), who is chairman of the House subcommittee that led the inquiry, is not pleased:

“When you have federal and state prisoners applying for the taxpayers’ money ó while they are in prison ó and then the disaster aid, that is a real assault on the American taxpayer,” he said. “I don’t have any tolerance for that.”