Hundreds Of Millions Stolen From Washington Unemployment System
OLYMPIA, WA — An international fraud ring has siphoned off untold millions from state coffers during a period of unprecedented unemployment in Washington, state officials confirmed Thursday.
Last week, the state Employment Security Department temporarily halted all payments to examine fraud protections after a sharp rise in claims filed using stolen identities detected in early May. The department's commissioner said the fraudsters took an estimated $1.6 million between March and April.
The Seattle Times reports Suzi LeVine, the department's commissioner, revealed Thursday that the scope of the theft was "orders of magnitude" larger than initially thought — in the hundreds of millions range — and said law enforcement is working to recover as much money as possible. State officials have not disclosed the exact amount of cash taken in the scheme.
According to LeVine, the thefts have been exclusively due to imposter claims, and not the result of a hack.
"This is happening because bad actors have acquired people's personal information through other data breaches outside the agency," LeVine said in a statement Monday. "There has been no data breach from ESD's system."
According to the Times, the U.S. Secret Service issued an alert last week naming Washington one of the top targets for a Nigerian fraud ring stealing states' unemployment funds during the COVID-19 crisis.
News of the massive fraud comes as new unemployment claims continue to surge, growing by another 29 percent last week. The state has received claims from 1.1 million people since March 7 and paid out nearly $3.8 billion in benefits.
On Wednesday, the Employment Security Department said all filers should expect their payments to be delayed for several days as thorough theft prevention measures will require additional processing time. New and existing applicants will need to take additional steps to verify their identities on the state's online portal.
Learn more about the payment delays, fraud prevention measures, and added identity requirements via the Employment Security Department website.
Fraudulent claims can be reported through an online portal.
This article originally appeared on the Seattle Patch
