WASHINGTON — A US authorities company is “increasing” its probe into greater than 100 officers at a UN reduction company who had hyperlinks to Hamas or have been members within the terror group’s Oct. 7, 2023, assault that killed dozens of People, The Submit has realized.
The Workplace of the Inspector Basic for the now-defunct US Company for Worldwide Growth continues to uncover ties to terrorism on the United Nations Aid and Works Company for Palestine Refugees within the Close to East, in accordance with a US official.
“USAID is investigating over 100 UNRWA officers for each ties to Hamas and participation within the October seventh terrorist assaults,” stated a US diplomat conversant in USAID IG’s energetic and ongoing investigation. “The record is increasing.”
Thus far, that investigation has unmasked 14 UNRWA workers affiliated with Hamas and referred two further staff for debarment, that means they will now not obtain US funding for the following 10 years. One former worker of the embattled Palestinian reduction company is already blacklisted from federal funds.
President Trump issued an government order in February 2025 additionally halting all US funding to UNRWA — which nonetheless obtained greater than $839 million in funding by way of the United Nations.
“UNRWA’s terrorist ties are simple and President Trump was proper to defund it–however the UN did not act,” Senate International Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch stated in a March 3 assertion.
“I’m glad to see President Trump’s USAID Workplace of the Inspector Basic conduct its personal investigations to make sure dangerous actors like UNRWA don’t get taxpayer {dollars}.”
USAID Deputy Inspector Basic Adam Kaplan is ready to share the workplace’s findings in addition to others from 149 energetic investigations with members of the Home International Affairs Oversight and Intelligence Subcommittee on Tuesday.
That may embrace info on his workplace’s international assist audits, uncovering of bribery and different illicit schemes totaling a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} — after the Elon Musk-led closure of USAID itself one yr in the past as a consequence of fraud considerations.
“I’m proud to say that even in a yr of huge change, USAID OIG has continued to attain unprecedented outcomes,” Kaplan stated in a written assertion submitted to the subcommittee final week.
“As the one OIG with international service personnel, our workplaces in Ukraine, Israel, El Salvador, South Africa, and Thailand enable for well timed and aggressive oversight near American-funded tasks on the bottom.”
Kaplan is making the case to Congress that the watchdog authorities company remains to be wanted even after USAID is shut down — and is bringing receipts of the alleged fraud, waste and abuse his workplace has uncovered.
Three months after USAID’s closure, three enterprise homeowners and a USAID contracting officer pleaded responsible to bilking taxpayers out of $550 million over a 10-year interval following an IG investigation.
One other IG inquiry led to the indictment of two international nationals for allegedly conspiring to divert $650 million in taxpayer-funded HIV/AIDS care and remedy from a Kenyan government-run company.
That helped protect $32 million in funding for non-fraudulent assist, Kaplan says in testimony.
Moreover, the IG workplace helped bust 19 folks in December taking part in a visa fraud ring spanning Central and South America that defrauded victims out of greater than $2.5 million.
USAID OIG auditors additionally found in a report challenge earlier this month that greater than $26 billion despatched to shore up the Ukraine authorities’s funds amid its battle with Russia was in truth being obtained by people “dwelling overseas,” along with points with “duplicate funds.”
The workplace was not included on a brand new group chart put out by the State Division after it closed USAID, but has continued to pursue investigations — at the same time as lawmakers area proposals to equally shut it down.
The testimony comes as federal businesses have been assembly with lawmakers to debate annual appropriations. Final yr, USAID OIG obtained greater than $62.5 million that had initially been slated solely for the State Division Workplace of Inspector Basic.
A Might 2025 legislative proposal — which was distributed to members of Congress once more in February — nonetheless has urged the abolition of USAID OIG and the belief of all its duties by the State Division’s inspector basic.
The proposal was adopted by a gathering between members of the State IG’s workplace and lawmakers, throughout which the legislative strategy was rejected, stated one supply conversant in the sit down.
Reps for the State Division Workplace of Inspector Basic didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
