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New York City will return $5.3m (£4m) to the US government after admitting in a settlement to fraudulently billing damage charges after Hurricane Sandy.
Wednesday's settlement states that the city falsely claimed a number of Department of Transportation vehicles were damaged by the 2012 storm.
Many of the vehicles had in fact been out of commission long before Sandy.
City officials acknowledged they signed off on the claims without actually inspecting the vehicles.
US Attorney Geoffrey Berman emphasised the government would always "take decisive enforcement action" to protect the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (Fema) money from "fraud, waste and abuse".
"When people lie to Fema about the cause of property damage in order to reap a windfall, it compromises Fema's ability to provide financial assistance to legitimate disaster victims in desperate need."
The New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) had obtained the millions of dollars in Fema funds after claiming 132 vehicles were seriously damaged by the 29 October, 2012 storm.
Over a dozen US states were affected by Hurricane Sandy. The total damage costs were $71bn, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), making Sandy the fourth costliest hurricane on record.
In 2012, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo estimated the state's damage amounted to over $32bn.
But according to federal prosecutors, NYCDOT officials "made no effort to inspect the vehicles or otherwise determine whether any reported damage was attributable to Sandy".
The claims list included seven paving vehicles that the city had already classified as non-operational - some as early as 2009 - as well as trash equipment taken out of service in 2010.
An NYCDOT employee notified the commissioner that some of the vehicles were not actually eligible for Fema funding in June 2014, but the city did not notify the federal agency until the official investigation.
"As a result of these false certifications, Fema paid the City millions of dollars to which it was not entitled," the complaint stated.
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