The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) released its program results for 2019. EBSA’s enforcement and benefit advisor programs recovered over $2.5 billion in payments to plans, participants and beneficiaries. That’s a lot of shekels.

EBSA reported over $2 billion in recoveries from its investigations. Under its Terminated Vested Participant Project, EBSA helped participants collect nearly $1.5 billion in retirement benefits owed to them.

Also, EBSA’s criminal investigations led to the indictment of 76 individuals – including plan officials, corporate officers, and service providers – for offenses related to employee benefit plans.

These amounts are very sobering to read and it shows the work of EBSA in clawing back money for participants and getting some creepy fiduciaries indicted.