California officials confirmed on Monday that more than $ 11 billion in unemployment benefits paid amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic involved fraud.
The state paid at least $ 11.4 billion, which is approximately 10% of the benefits paid during the pandemic, in funds that involved fraud, the California Department of Employment Development confirmed to The Hill. Seventeen percent of the remainder of the total benefits paid are under investigation.
“There is no way to ease the reality,” California Labor Secretary Julie Su said during a press conference on Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported. “California does not have sufficient security measures in place to prevent this level of fraud and criminals have taken advantage of the situation.”
The state has paid $ 114 billion in unemployment insurance since the pandemic began last March, with authorities processing approximately 19 million claims.
Authorities have warned that many of the 17% claims under investigation may also involve fraud.
Su said on Monday that the Trump administration did not provide adequate guidance and resources for California in the midst of the pandemic, as several companies were forced to close due to health orders. She said that almost all of the fraudulent claims were made through a federal program that offers unemployment insurance for self-employed, self-employed and others.
“We now know that while millions of Californians asked for help, international and national criminal gangs were working behind the scenes, working tirelessly to steal unemployment benefits using sophisticated methods of identity theft,” said Su, according to the Times.
The California Department of Employment Development announced last month that it was freezing 1.4 million unemployment claims to verify identities.
The Department hired a contractor to verify the identities of the claimants, ID.me. The contractor found that 35 percent of unemployment claims across the country had concerns about fraud.
The state is also battling an accumulation of unemployment insurance claims amid the pandemic, which totaled 916,000 claims last week.
—Updated at 10:56 pm