NEW YORK, may 17. /TASS/. the Competent authorities of the United States believe that organized network of fraudsters stole hundreds of millions of dollars by falsifying applications for granting unemployment benefits in the state of Washington and six other States of the country. This was reported in the Sunday newspaper The New York Times, citing Secret service of the USA and representatives of authorities in the field.
According to the article, scammers have used the workload of American officials during a pandemic and issued requests for unemployment benefits of persons employed people. Their personal data, including addresses, phone numbers, card numbers social security and debit cards was stolen by hackers and overbought long before the outbreak of illnesses caused by coronavirus, a new type. In many regions the money was transferred directly into the Bank account specified in the fake requests for benefits.
In Washington state government woke up only in the last days, when they began to receive calls from US citizens, who wondered why they e-mail a confirmation of the accrual of the benefits, they do not require. “It was a punch in the stomach”, — declared the head of the Department of employment Washington Suzi Levine.
the newspaper available was a document of the Secret service about the availability of information about the involvement of Nigerian groups scams to “potential loss of hundreds of millions of dollars.” Service special agent Roy Dotson confirmed that the investigation is underway, but has not yet led to the identification of specific perpetrators.
According to Dotson, the organizers of the scheme resorted to the services of individuals who perform the role of mediator in legalization in the United States of criminally acquired assets.
last week, the labor Department announced that in April the unemployment rate in the country reached a record 14.7 percent. According to The Washington Post interviewed experts, in this period, was about twice the size of the reductions in employees than during the global financial crisis of 2008. US GDP in the first quarter of 2020 for the first time in six years decreased by 4.8% yoy in connection with the situation around the pandemic.
According to the Johns Hopkins University, which conducts calculations based on data from Federal and local authorities in the United States recorded more than 1.47 million cases of infection with coronavirus, has died 88 of 898 persons, recovered 268 376.
