ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – The number of fraudulent unemployment cases being uncovered continues to grow, following the pandemic. A New Mexico woman is now facing multiple charges for filing false claims, for prison inmates.
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“You talk with somebody that you know is genuinely in need of help, and the very next call is someone using the same story, to defraud the system,” said Ricky Serna, the Acting Secretary for Department of Workforce Solutions, during an interview with KRQE in August 2021.
According to a criminal complaint, filed in federal court, Bianca Guerrero is one of those people, who gamed the unemployment system. Guerrero appeared in court Friday morning. Investigators say she filed at least eight unemployment claims between June and October of 2020.
Those claims were filed for inmates, locked up in the New Mexico Department of Corrections. Under the agreement, they would split the money with her. On the first application, Guerrero said the claimant had recently become unemployed due to the pandemic because they were “unable to go to people’s houses to work.”
Months later, Guerrero received more than $13,000 in benefits and split the money with the inmate who is serving life in prison. The report says the inmate, only referred to by his initials in the complaint, encouraged Guerrero to file claims for a number of his friends in prison, saying they would give Guerrero most of the money if she put $500 on their books. She filed seven more...
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