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NEW ORLEANS – The $20 1000000000 money answerable for compensating victims of BP's Gulf of Mexico oil move has received more than 7,000 potentially fraudulent claims, some of which hit been referred to the Justice Department for malefactor investigations, the fund's administrator told a senate commission on Thursday.

Attorney Kenneth Feinberg, who is overseeing the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, said of more than 481,000 claims filed, 7,575 are thoughtful potentially fraudulent. The Justice Department has already indicted octad claimants.

The money was ordered up in August to handle thousands of claims for rectification from residents, business owners and fishermen crossways the Gulf Coast and beyond who crapper establish they suffered business losses from BP PLC's April 20 oil well blowout off the shore of Louisiana. The Deepwater Horizon discharge killed 11 chisel workers and dispatched millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf.

Feinberg testified in pedagogue on Thursday before a subcommittee of the senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Lawmakers criticized Feinberg's operation of the money and the andante measure of processing claims, asking his dedication to transparency.

Feinberg's pedagogue accumulation concern had been receiving $850,000 a period from BP for its work. He is currently negotiating with BP over a new commercialism structure for his brass of the money finished August 2013.

"As the Gulf continues to recover, I move to hit earnest concerns regarding claims determinations prefabricated by this organization," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who noted that 38,604 claims in his bag land hit still to obtain "one centime in funding."

"The Gulf Coast Claims Facility is not performing with the pertinent solicitation I thought it would," Shelby said.

Claimants crossways the Gulf Coast hit also criticized Feinberg, querulous that they are existence paying too little, too tardily or not at all.

Those who feel they were shortchanged or wrong denied rectification crapper attractiveness to the U.S. Coast Guard. As of Thursday, Feinberg said the Coast Guard had computerized 264 discover of 507 appeals. In every housing they reviewed, the authority has agreed with the decisions by the claims money and offered no additional relief.

Feinberg has repeatedly promised impartiality and transparency. He titled the information a success that has already paying discover more than $3.3 1000000000 to most 168,000 claimants. He said roughly half of every claims hit been denied because of ineligibility or demand of documentation.

Feinberg also told the commission he would presently begin downsizing the fund's staff because some aren't necessary after the claims hit been entered into the system. But he said it would be finished carefully so it doesn't hurt the fund's knowledge "to impact claims expeditiously and effectively."

The money currently employs most 3,600 people direct or by contract. The prototypal ammo of cuts module retrograde 150 people from one of the subcontractors, with more to come.

"As the information moves forward, we simply do not need the aforementioned infrastructure that we necessary when hundreds of thousands of people were filing for the prototypal time," Feinberg told The Associated Press after the hearing.

The money module move operative until 2013 because that's how daylong claimants hit to decide whether to verify a final settlement, accept interim quarterly payments or forego the claim and process instead.

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Associated Press Writer Dina Cappiello contributed to this inform from Washington. Skoloff reportable from Ocean Springs, Miss.

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