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A fraudulent activity which has resulted in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars was reported reported by state officials in Washington Thursday. Suzi LeVine, commissioner of the Washington Employment Security Department (ESD) said that the fraud was orchestrated in Nigeria.
While at a news conference on Thursday, the commissioner revealed the fraud incident. The fraudsters broke through the state’s unemployment insurance system but LeVine did not say the amount they got away with.
Washington state is seeing an unusual wave of jobless claims and the disclosure clarifies that. About a week ago, an alert warning from the U.S. Secret Service went out to the U.S states according to the Seattle Times.
It said that Washington was the primary target by a “well-organized Nigerian fraud ring exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to commit large-scale fraud against state unemployment insurance programs.” It also mentioned “potential losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Washington began paying the new benefits early. The state officials also had little to verify new jobless claims that are to receive benefits. The ESD officials have suspicions that the fraud activities from Nigeria primarily targeted Washington for this reason.
Agari, a cybersecurity firm that tracks the activities of a Nigeria criminal group, released a report this week. It named the organisation in the fraud.
The organisation runs scam using details they steal to get payments, student aid and disaster relief funds according to the report.
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