A U.S. Department of Labor report stated Illinois failed to report theft of pandemic relief money as required. Illinois lost over half of pandemic unemployment funds to fraud.
The U.S. Department of Labor criticized Illinois for failing to report data on fraudulent pandemic unemployment payments, stating future fraud is hard to prevent when past fraud isn’t tracked.
Illinois lost over half of its pandemic unemployment funds to fraud, according to a state audit.
“Without accurate state performance information, Congress and the [Employment and Training Administration] are not able to fully assess state activities and mitigate the risk of overpayments and fraud for future programs of a similar nature,” the report stated.
A separate report from Illinois Auditor General Frank Mautino found about $1.9 billion of the $3.6 billion distributed from July 2020 to June 2021 was paid to illegitimate accounts.
Online chat rooms offered tutorials on how to scheme Illinois’ unemployment benefits through identity theft, according to David Maimon, criminology professor at Georgia State University.
“We see many identities, many bank accounts, many driver’s licenses that are associated with Illinois residents” for sale on the dark web, Maimon said.
More here.
Related: “Suburban police departments are being flooded with reports of fraudulent unemployment benefit claims: ‘It doesn’t make a lot of sense.’,” “Unemployment insurance fraud is growing in Illinois. Here’s what you need to know.,” “Illinois Republicans urge Gov. Pritzker to opt-out of expanded unemployment benefits,” “IDES report detailing scope of Illinois unemployment fraud remains unpublished one year later,” “Audit reveals Illinois lost nearly $2 BILLION to COVID-19 unemployment fraud”
Leave a Reply