Turning Fraud Recovery Into Community Repair: A Proposal for Recirculating Public Funds

Speaker Identification

Speaker 1 – Kina – Co-host and primary presenter. The transcript identifies the program as being with Kina and Justin, and the speaker who describes writing the letters, explains the proposals, addresses Justin by name, and closes by saying she is happy to be there with Justin is identified as Kina.

Speaker 2 – Justin – Co-host. Kina directly asks Justin for his reaction, and the responding speaker provides commentary, analogies, humor, questions, and examples throughout the discussion.

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Speaker 1 – Kina: Hello there. Welcome to Translating Heart Intelligence. You're here today with Kina and Justin.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Hi, Kina.

Speaker 1 – Kina: Hi, Justin. I'm excited to be here with you today. In our previous episode, our intention was to cover some ideas I was working on and letters I sent out regarding housing, but I think we're actually going to do our final episode idea that I had. I think it's going to be a lot more applicable to what people might be curious about. What do you think about that?

Speaker 2 – Justin: Well, no time like the present, I guess.

Speaker 1 – Kina: Yeah, well, that's true. For this idea today, I want to share with the listeners a letter that I wrote to the Attorney General—the Department of Justice Attorney General—with the help of ChatGPT. The idea is to essentially recirculate and reuse existing monies that we have in our financial system and government system, and recirculate that back to people so people can begin repairing their own communities, if that's what somebody wants to do.

You did it, Justin. You did, like, the “hoo-rah.” This thing is pretty funny. So it is a little bit long, and you'll have to bear with me, but I am going to read the letter straight through. I believe his name is Inspector General Sean O'Neill. This was my idea, and then we're going to explore this a lot more in depth after this.

Okay. I would like to propose:

“For Attorney General:

I am writing to respectfully share a public-trust proposal regarding fraud recovery and Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and related care systems.

When fraud extracts from programs meant to protect elders and disabled people, [unclear clause in source transcript].

I would like to propose exploring a fraud-to-care reinvestment pathway where recovered assets from confirmed care-system fraud are transparently reported and, where legally authorized, redirected into visible care infrastructure.

This could include, but not be limited to, elder day centers, disability respite programs, child-care facilities, caregiver support hubs, transportation access, or local care-navigation services.

The core principle is simple: when money is stolen from care systems, recovered value should return to care.

This would not replace Department of Justice enforcement or place additional suspicion on legitimate beneficiaries. The focus should remain on confirmed fraud, organized extraction patterns, provider-side abuse, identity misuse, and improper billing networks.

DOJ could continue its enforcement role while Congress, Treasury, HHS, SSA, CMS, or state partners establish the legal and administrative pathways for reinvestment.

A public dashboard could show the fraud category, the amount recovered, the care project funded, the community served, and the oversight status. This could help rebuild public trust by showing that enforcement produces tangible repair, not only punishment. It may also strengthen deterrence.

Anyone who steals from care systems would know that recovered assets will be used to build support for the very populations harmed.

Respectfully, I believe this model could turn fraud exposure into visible restoration and help demonstrate the Department of Justice's capacity not only to prosecute wrongdoing, but to help restore public confidence through transparent repair.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Kina”

So, Justin, what do you think of that?

Speaker 2 – Justin: Well, a lot of things come to mind from my perspective. The first thing that popped up for me was Social Security. Nobody even mentioned the fact that, you know, the vampires are real because there are some 200-year-old people still collecting Social Security. But those kinds of programs being reimbursed back to hospitals, schools, veterans, and stuff like that would be a great idea.

Speaker 1 – Kina: Well, in our previous episode, we were exploring how money gained from tariffs can get filtered down to people who would want to participate in that, especially if they were in a time of hardship. We were also talking about an artificial-intelligence dividend for people who may be losing their jobs, right? So that was in our previous episode. We were talking about using funds that are already there for those ideas.

With this one, just like you were saying, there's a lot of discussion about fraud and the amount of money being found is astronomical. I think it's so interesting that in all of those articles, nobody ever says where the money goes after it's collected. So this was my attempt at exploring that amount of money and those resources in a way that could help many people.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Yeah, reinjected back into the states. From what I see, it would be most helpful for the homeless and schools.

Speaker 1 – Kina: Yeah. Budgets have really been down everywhere, and our children are the future. We need to strengthen all of that as much as possible. I think tariff rebates would be a really good stabilizer for a lot of people in meeting their survival needs through a time of financial transition.

Speaker 2 – Justin: I agree. Those are a lot of the people who could really use the help. And they've already proven that they can send checks out to everybody—every citizen in the United States. You know, it's just going right back to the federal government, and nobody is being told where it goes, whether it be flamenco dancing lessons in South America or basket weaving in Iran. I didn't consent to that.

Speaker 1 – Kina: So it would be really good for us to have more transparency. I think that would be a must in order for something like this to work. People deserve to be told.

If that money is just waiting there, we can use it. I guess one of my biggest goals with this was finding a way for people to help repair their community and their world, because there's all this money waiting—just waiting for people to be able to do that.

First, it has to start with the Department of Justice or other people finding the fraud and going through the legal process. If there are reparations that have to be made and there's money left, there's a lot there.

Today, I was actually checking. I searched Google for fraud, and I went to the Federal Trade Commission website, FTC.gov. There was an article in June, and it said $3.5 billion in imposter scams. So just from that one type of scam in 2025, last year, scammers acquired $3.5 billion. To me, if we could find a way for people to have access to some of those funds after their communities were harmed, and they could use that money to help build a better community, I think that would be so beautiful.

Do you think now is a good time? I did a lot of work because I sent this particular letter in on May 13, and I've been doing a lot of work thinking from more of a collective perspective: How do we communicate with the people who would allocate the money? There are people going after the fraud. There are funds being collected. So how could we disperse those funds to people realistically, using what already exists?

That's where I wrote another letter to the Treasury, and my final one I actually sent yesterday. I was thinking about this a lot. I was thinking about making bridges to where we want to go. Ideally, you wouldn't have to worry about this stuff, more people would be able to be taken care of, and we would have more sustainable systems to give our children. But I don't really feel like that's there. So this is my attempt at trying to create that bridge.

I'll probably just share the beginning of my Treasury letter that I sent yesterday, and then I'm going to do a summary after because it's really long.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Okay.

Speaker 1 – Kina: So this is the beginning, and this ties into the letter that was sent to the Inspector General in May.

“August 12, 2026

Dear U.S. Department of the Treasury:

I am writing to share a concept for a public-facing community project portal that could help translate lawfully recoverable public value into visible community repair.

The central idea is simple: when federal funds are lawfully recovered from fraud, improper payments, settlements, forfeitures, or other forms of financial misconduct, could a defined portion of eligible funds—after restitution, statutory obligations, and other legal requirements are satisfied—be returned to a protected community reinvestment pool?”

Speaker 2 – Justin: Cool.

Speaker 1 – Kina: I know that's more of the financial jargon. What does just the beginning of that sound like to you?

Speaker 2 – Justin: Reallocation of funds to the states, maybe. More like that.

Speaker 1 – Kina: Okay. Well, I'll keep going with the summary, and then we'll check back in. The proposal asks whether some money that the government lawfully acquires or recovers from fraud or misuse, after victims are repaid and legal requirements are met, could be placed into a community reinvestment pool.

People in communities could then use a single public project portal to submit practical rebuilding ideas without needing to know which federal agency handles what. The government would route each project to the right existing system, such as HUD for housing, USDA for rural infrastructure, Labor for apprenticeships, or Transportation for mobility.

The core loop is: fund the project, build the project, protect it, recover assets, replenish funds, and build again. If fraud happens, the system investigates and recovers what it can. Where legally allowed, eligible recovered money returns to the pool instead of simply disappearing from public use.

The goal is to turn accountability into a recirculating repair system: stop extraction, recover value, and put that value back toward useful community capacity.

The simplest teaching sentence of the whole letter might be: What if fraud recovery didn't just stop harm, but, after restitution and legal obligations, helped fund the next round of community repair?

There are three main ideas underneath that. One: one doorway for communities to submit needs through one simple portal. Two: smart routing, where existing agencies review projects in their areas of expertise and allow distribution of funds. Three: recirculation, where eligible recovered funds can replenish the pool and help finance future projects.

One of the biggest downsides I see with this is if people don't want to get involved. I don't want to say people get complacent, but if they don't want to stay up on it, that could be a problem.

Speaker 2 – Justin: So with this, that would allow an individual who knows the needs of their community to submit their projects or ideas directly to the Treasury for funding. So, pretty much, instead of increasing taxes to help pay for everything, this would be an additional buffer on top of that without increasing taxes.

Speaker 1 – Kina: Yes. One of the other parts of this follow-on letter that I sent to the Treasury was asking them to allow people in different communities to pilot this. Start with a few—start with a smaller group of people who are already ready to get projects for their community started, humanitarian efforts. That was a big part of the last part of the letter, because if it worked, and it worked well, it would be scalable. That means more and more people could do it.

That's a part of using the chat that really helped me. It helped me formulate my ideas and work with language that they could understand.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Right. So using funds in the community, what comes to my mind is a lot of these homes that are in disrepair and have somebody there who is usually elderly or disabled. They can look like houses that nobody even lives in, but somebody could advocate for them to have their home fixed using this pool.

Speaker 1 – Kina: That's actually super interesting that you brought that up, because helping people with housing was also an additional part of the last body of work we shared in the previous episode.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Yeah.

Speaker 1 – Kina: So that was part of the tariff-distribution funds. I was hoping this one could be more for people who have a community project.

Do you want me to kind of go over the other things? We jumped ahead in our schedule because I felt like this was really important to cover for people right now who want to know maybe more avenues to do personal funding. The other things that we wanted to share before this, like with housing today, involved the additional work that I sent in regarding tariffs and housing.

We also did right to repair, so I was working with ways to make it easier for Americans to repair their own homes or vehicles. That was going to be another episode. We also wanted to work on transportation infrastructure and skilled-labor payment restructuring. Those are going to be some of the other episodes we're going to cover.

But for this particular one, I wanted to share this information—the fact that I sent this in—and invite other people to get inspired if they feel they really want to start putting the work in. We can create a structure to reuse funds collected through fraud to give people the opportunity and the right to repair their own community, not just their home or their own vehicles, but to begin a new adventure—something they're really excited about—and potentially get funded for it, using money and assets that were seized from groups or people who were basically scamming the system.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Yes.

Speaker 1 – Kina: Okay. One of the things that made me really sad to hear was that a lot of elderly people were getting defrauded because they needed medical equipment, such as wheelchairs or walkers. This was something they were talking about on the White House YouTube channel. They did a fraud meeting about this, and they shared that people were getting scammed because they thought they were buying medical equipment and nothing showed up.

In the event of something like that, the way I read the situation is: elderly people need more access to medical equipment. They need it so badly. They need that care so badly that they're getting taken advantage of because the need is so great.

That's where somebody has an opportunity to step in and say, “Okay, I see the need. How do we fulfill this need for this group of people?”

Speaker 2 – Justin: Right.

Speaker 1 – Kina: And that's, honestly, one of the most—not that fraud is beautiful—but one of the really revealing things about it. When you look at where the fraud is happening, that is showing the need that people have. By using those assets, you can help fulfill those needs.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Well, with all the Social Security fraud, a lot of people are doing that so they can get extra money per month. And that was where our previous episode was giving an example of a way to give more people more security.

Speaker 1 – Kina: That's the exact same way I looked at that situation: okay, there's a problem. This is the problem. What's available to fulfill the needs of the problem, and how do we distribute it to the people who actually need it, instead of some of the other scary aspects, like increasing the retirement age or the funds for Social Security drying up before our generation can even withdraw?

Speaker 2 – Justin: I mean, who knows? They might try to raise the age again. Here in the United States, they have in other places like France.

Speaker 1 – Kina: Yeah. So this could be a way to kind of keep things the same, but distribute more to the people who need it.

Another thing that's been coming up a lot that I feel so strongly about is how many of our children have autism or special needs. We have immediate experience with that. A lot of people our age—it's hard. I don't want to say heartbreaking, but it's really sad, because so many of us have at least one child on the spectrum. It's like one in five now, right? Is that the new statistic?

Speaker 2 – Justin: I haven't seen that statistic, but I mean, it's like one in five boys. I don't know about girls.

Speaker 1 – Kina: Yeah. When we have discussions about that, or we talk about the longevity of the current structure, how does that help our children have a sustainable future, especially if so many of them have autism?

A lot of them are really gifted in one area. One skill—they get really obsessed with it. They love whatever that is. Then, depending on how severe it is, basic common sense or basic care skills for themselves can be something we really work on with them.

It's really, really challenging because we hope for the best with them. But I think it's really important to start looking at other alternatives, because if that many of our children—that much of our future—has to live differently, that is showing us a problem. There is also a need for something different in order for the future to flourish.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Interestingly enough, since we're kind of on the topic a little bit, I did see that Einstein would have been classified as autistic at the time. I thought that was kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 – Kina: Yeah, we saw that the other day, where a lot of his traits and mannerisms were discussed. Like, he would only wear the same clothes because it was too stressful for him to make decisions about what he was wearing. Then he only slept for like two hours a night, because that's what he said was all he needed.

Speaker 2 – Justin: I don't do so well after two hours.

Speaker 1 – Kina: Yeah, I need more than two hours. But I notice that they kind of function differently. They have different care requirements. When you can help them find the avenue they're really passionate about, oh my gosh, there is nothing that will stop them from just going absolutely crazy over it.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Oh yeah, like some three-year-old playing Mozart on a violin.

Speaker 1 – Kina: Yeah, or the ones who can paint. We have another family member who is just like that as well. She really enjoys painting, and that's kind of her outlet. She's definitely on the spectrum, but she is one of the most amazing artists.

The thing with that is, in order for her to be able to create art, she has to know that she's safe, she's taken care of, and she can be peaceful in order to create what she wants to create. You know, comic books—in order to create what she wants to create.

Using this program here with the extra pool of money, they wouldn't have to rely solely on—what is it—SSI?

Speaker 2 – Justin: Yeah, or, you know, Project 8 housing—Section 8.

Speaker 1 – Kina: That's different. We're giving the projects.

Speaker 2 – Justin: No, but Section 8 more generally. It could be a little bit better or more comfortable for them, at least if they don't have a caregiver, or even have caregivers assigned to them if they need it.

Speaker 1 – Kina: I think that's also where we talked about tariff rebates coming in to help people—not like a UBI. Tariff rebates would be consenting and piloted. That was my idea.

Everything I'm sharing here is an example of ideas that I've sent in. I gladly invite everybody in the world to make up their own ideas, because we need them. We need more ideas. We're just sharing ones that we've come up with right now.

What we're discussing today would be more like: “Okay, I have an idea for a healing center, and I have seen that my community has a need for a healing center.” Or, “My community has a need for giving autistic children, for example, a safer place to play.” If you had an idea like that, or let's say your community was just overrun with SNAP benefit fraud, what does that tell me? It tells me that area might already be using a lot of SNAP. There's a need for food. There's a need for cheaper food or more quality food.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Well, that's one of the things I was going to say a little bit earlier. Maybe a community garden, or some kind of a swap, or something. We even talked about that here in our town. There are several places here that would really benefit from a farmers market. Or, you know, those people need a certain amount of food—eggs, milk, the basics—and somebody could come in and say, “Here. Here's your milk. It's already been paid for.”

Speaker 1 – Kina: Or even something a little bit simpler, like children needing more parks and safe places to play. There are a lot of them that are in complete disrepair.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Yes. Or even our roads.

Speaker 1 – Kina: That would be different.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Yeah, we actually came up with a different funding path for infrastructure. I'm blending the two. This one's completely different.

Okay, so from what I understand with this one, it's like if the police take down a dealer of nonregulated pharmaceuticals and they have all that extra cash that was left behind in vehicles. That cash goes back to the police department, and the police department also has a shiny new 1,200-horsepower Charger to help catch other sellers of unregulated pharmaceuticals as well. Is that kind of it, but on a smaller scale?

Speaker 1 – Kina: Well, that's actually a really good example. Let's say the police department caught people, they had a bunch of money, and there was no accountability for how that money was allocated. Let's say the police department wanted to buy another Charger. They can do that.

But what this is more about is: let's say the police catch the dealer or the bad guy. They need to be transparent about how much was recovered. Then somebody in the community could put forth their own project and say, “I feel like we need rehabilitation. We need better rehab for people doing drugs.” Or let's say, “I want to open a center where we're going to do animal therapy for people going through drug abuse or rehabilitation. This is my way of trying to contribute to the problem I'm seeing in my community.”

I guess the most important part of that is that I feel like we all, through the last couple of years, have been going through a reevaluation of worth. I think ultimately it's a reevaluation of self-worth.

Where I'm coming from is that I'm seeing this huge pile of recurring money that is available for people to be able to use, because people deserve the right to repair their community. They deserve the right to fix whatever it is they want to if they are helping the sustainability of their community.

Using the money that was used to harm people is a really beautiful way of transmuting or redirecting the flow of that money away from what keeps harming people, or what keeps the fraud loop going.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Right. The monopolies, all that stuff.

Speaker 1 – Kina: It should be able to go to people who actually want to try to help fix their world. That's why I sent that letter to the Department of Justice, because I feel like it's also important to let them know how important it is for them to keep doing this.

It's a recirculating loop. If they keep going out and fighting the good fight, even though it's really hard, they can see that those assets they collect are going to be able to go back to the people to fix their communities. What would be better than that? I think that would be so great.

The other really beautiful part is, let's say somebody put in a project with the intent of committing massive amounts of fraud. If we were more aware of accountability, they'd have to go through the process of whatever happens when they weren't telling the truth on their project. But that money that's taken back from that could just go straight back in so it can go to other people.

A lot of the biggest ones are billions of dollars.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Yeah, like billions and billions of dollars.

Speaker 1 – Kina: There have been a lot of shows on BBS Radio that I've been very grateful to be able to listen to, and they have talked about doing projects. They've talked about getting involved in your community. I just wanted to share that I've started sending my ideas of how this can work to the government.

The money really is there that everybody's been asking for to fund their projects. But we need to give them a reason to believe that there actually are people who want to fix their community.

If people feel so inclined, if they go to Treasury.gov, there are phone numbers where you can contact the Treasury. There's also an email at the very bottom, if you scroll all the way down. There's also a “congressional inquiries” address—that's how the email address starts.

I would ask people to let them know: if you want to fix your community, tell them. You can tell them that you know there's money there that could be allocated for what you're doing. Share what your plan is and what you want to do. I feel like if enough people were able to do that, because that's where the money actually is, the system to give money back to you to fund whatever it is that you want to do is there.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Yeah, and be persistent. Think of The Shawshank Redemption. Remember, he wrote the letter asking for more books for the library? They ignored him. They ignored him for I don't remember how many months. Then he started writing a letter a week, and then two letters a week. Eventually, his persistence paid off to the point where they gave him a truckload of books and told him to stop writing. So it eventually worked.

In that sense, we have to be able to demand our worth.

Speaker 1 – Kina: Yeah. We have to be able to demand our worth because we are worth saving. Our children are worth creating a world that can hold them. I know that, together, we can do it if we really want to. This is just an example of how to do it.

I think it's just been absolutely wonderful to be able to be here, and I get to be here with you.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Yeah.

Speaker 1 – Kina: And we get to explore these different ideas. It's just wonderful.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Yeah, you've been able to share your ideas and how you went about translating them so you could send out these letters to many different places. This is just one of well over a dozen that you've sent out so far.

I guess the point we're trying to make here is that anybody and everybody can do this.

Speaker 1 – Kina: Yeah.

Speaker 2 – Justin: And the persistence of everybody together can annoy the system enough to where things can change. People always want to put it back on our elected representatives and all that, but I'm not going to get into that. Everybody has their own individual voice, and everybody can even use the free version of the software to translate it into a way to make those changes.

Speaker 1 – Kina: Yes. If people feel like they have an idea, or they already have a project for their community that they've worked on, a really good way to be able to [unclear: “procreate it”] or help direct it exactly to the audience—for example, if you want to submit it to the Treasury for funding—is to use AI.

It's so helpful with that, and it's so helpful with figuring out approximations of how much something would cost. If you needed to rent somewhere for your idea or your center, you can actually use AI. All the different AIs are capable of doing this, whichever one you're more comfortable with.

Or if you already have a Word document, you can submit that. It can read through it and help you. Google has the built-in chat now. It's all completely free.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Yeah, that one's not as in-depth—the one in the search bar.

Speaker 1 – Kina: I would actually go to maybe one of the more in-depth ones if you wanted to upload your file, like if you already had a completed project file for your community. But if you have questions about how much it is to rent somewhere in your area, or you have questions about anything else locally for your project, the Google one can help you with that too, or even redirect you somewhere else.

Well, I think we're coming close to the end of our time today. I'm so grateful to be able to connect with anybody who's there to listen. I'm really happy to be able to be here with Justin.

Speaker 2 – Justin: And I'm really happy to be here with you too.

Speaker 1 – Kina: We hope that some people are getting something out of this, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for everybody. Thank you so much for listening today.

Speaker 2 – Justin: Thank you, and have a great, great day. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.