Inside Track
$400B Stolen in COVID Unemployment Fraud
According to recent reports, as much as half of unemployment benefits paid out as part of government-issued COVID relief funds may have been stolen through fraud. And allegedly much of that money has left U.S. shores through the scheming of international criminals. In total, America may have been cheated out of more than $400 billion due to fraudulent claims.
The reports — from fraud-detection services ID.me and LexisNexis Risk Solutions — are both shocking and damning. Blake Hall, CEO of ID.me, told Axios June 10 that America has lost more than $400 billion to fraudulent claims. As much as 50 percent of all unemployment monies might have been stolen, said Hall. And Haywood Talcove — CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions — estimates that at least 70 percent of the money was hijacked by impostors who ultimately left the country, much of the wealth ending up in the hands of criminal syndicates in China, Nigeria, Russia, and elsewhere. “These groups are definitely backed by the state,” he said.
With long-term unemployment payments now being issued on a massive scale as a result of the government’s COVID response, criminals are seeing an opportunity to cash in. Add to that the simple fact that — like nearly everything else related to government handling of COVID over the past year — states were unprepared for unemployment claims on a gigantic scale never before seen.
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