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Federal Districts by Pandemic-Fraud Cases Announced

Which federal judicial districts the Justice Department's pandemic-fraud announcements came out of, counted from the 2,879 press releases in the archive's published index.

How this list is built

The archive's press index holds one row per Justice Department press release about pandemic-relief fraud, and records a federal judicial district for the case on each one it could read. This list counts releases per district and ranks by the count; the date columns are the earliest and latest release in the index for that district. The district codes in the file are abbreviations, and the names below are the U.S. Attorney's Office named on the releases carrying each code.

Unit ranked: the federal judicial district recorded for the case. Metric: count of pandemic-fraud press releases. Universe: 2,879 releases, of which 2,623 carry a district across 93 districts; the 25 below account for 1,619, 61.7 percent of the coded releases. 256 releases carry no district and are not ranked. Vintage: releases from 17 March 2020 to 15 September 2026.

The 25 districts with the most releases

#DistrictReleasesFirstMost recent
1Massachusetts1652020-04-162026-08-26
2Florida, Middle1322020-03-302026-09-14
3New Jersey1172020-03-212026-08-20
4Florida, Southern1102020-04-082026-08-17
5California, Central902020-03-202026-07-29
6Maryland832020-08-272026-08-19
7Louisiana, Eastern742020-03-232026-09-14
8Virginia, Eastern712020-05-292026-09-14
9Georgia, Northern622020-03-242026-09-03
10New York, Western602020-03-222026-08-13
11New York, Southern582020-05-212026-08-25
12West Virginia, Southern562020-03-212026-09-14
13Missouri, Western492020-03-232026-09-14
14North Carolina, Eastern482020-03-202026-08-03
15Pennsylvania, Middle462020-03-242026-08-18
16New York, Eastern452020-03-202026-06-10
17California, Eastern432020-04-022026-05-14
18Colorado432021-06-042026-05-26
19North Carolina, Western432020-03-232026-09-14
20Illinois, Northern422020-03-202026-09-14
21Georgia, Southern392020-04-072025-12-16
22Ohio, Southern382020-03-232026-09-15
23District of Columbia362020-04-022026-09-14
24Nevada352020-03-182026-07-14
25Washington, Western342020-03-182026-09-14

What this measures, and what it does not

This counts announcements, not cases, defendants or convictions. A single prosecution can generate several releases — charge, plea, sentence — and one release can cover several defendants. A district whose U.S. Attorney's Office has an active press operation will rank above a district that charges as many cases and says less.

This is not the same count as U.S. Attorney's Offices by Pandemic-Fraud Announcements, and the two lists will not agree row for row. That list ranks the office that announced. The index records the announcing office as a tag string, and one release can carry several tags: a second district, a Justice Department division, an investigating agency. That list splits each string, keeps the U.S. Attorney's Office components, and credits a release to every office it names. This list instead uses the single district the index records for the case, so a release announced jointly by two offices counts once here and twice there.

The two lists also read different snapshots of the same index. This page is built from the 2,879 releases in the published download linked below. The offices page was built from an earlier snapshot of 2,709 releases ending in May 2026, and its figures will move when it is rebuilt on the published file.

The count is of what the index holds. A release the index missed is not counted, and a case an office never announced is invisible to it. Nothing here ranks districts by how much fraud occurred in them.

Sources

  • Archive data page: DOJ pandemic-fraud press index
  • File as held: doj-pandemic-fraud-press-index.csv, the published download linked above (sha256 82d6f4a7c280ac85…)
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