The greatest grift in U.S. history was brazen, even simple. Criminals and gangs grabbed the money. So did a U.S. soldier in Georgia, the pastors of a defunct church in Texas, a former state lawmaker in Missouri, and a roofing contractor in Montana.

Over the last three years, thieves plundered billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief aid to combat the worst pandemic in a century and stabilize an economy in free fall.

Here are some key takeaways from an Associated Press analysis of what may have been stolen or wasted.

HOW MUCH WAS STOLEN?

An Associated Press analysis found that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief funding; another $123 billion was wasted or misspent. Combined, the loss represents a jarring 10% of the $4.2 trillion the U.S. government has so far disbursed in COVID-relief aid.

That number is sure to grow as investigators dig deeper into thousands of potential schemes.

There are myriad reasons for the staggering loss. Investigators and outside experts say the government, in seeking to quickly spend trillions in relief aid, conducted too little oversight during the pandemic’s early stages and instituted too few restrictions on applicants. In short, they say, the grift was just way too easy.

The U.S. government has charged more than 2,230 defendants with pandemic-related fraud crimes and is conducting thousands of investigations.

The pilfering was wide but not always as deep as the eye-catching headlines about cases involving many millions of dollars. But all of the theft, big and small, illustrate an epidemic of scams and swindles at a time America was grappling with overrun hospitals, school closures and shuttered businesses. Since the pandemic began in early 2020, more than 1.13 million people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.