The continued reports of another wave of unemployment insurance (UI) fraud claims in nearly half of the states across the nation are major indicators that, even post-pandemic, many state governments have yet to tackle and mitigate their ongoing fraud risk processing claims and benefits. The most recent fraud schemes include fraudulent applications with fake identities, account takeovers, and inside “mules” that are compromising existing benefit accounts.
According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in a report from February 2023, “the expediting of COVID-19 relief funding exacerbated an underlying improper payment problem in the federal government, including UI, which predated the pandemic. For example, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) reported an increase in estimated improper payments from $8.0 billion (9.2 percent estimated improper payment rate) for fiscal year 2020 to $78.1 billion.
According to the U.S. DOL Inspector General as of January 2, 2021, there was an estimate of at least $39.2 billion in improper UI payments at risk of not being detected and recovered. The large sum included $17 billion in “potential fraud paid in four high-risk areas, such as to multi-state claimants and those with social security numbers of deceased persons.”
As both a former chief...
Chief Douglas Otaru, the former publicity secretary who was recently removed from his position following the APC state congress, was quoted as making several allegations against Dr. Aliyu Bello, t...