California officials confirm more than $ 11 billion in unemployment fraud during pandemic

California officials confirmed on Monday that more than $ 11 billion in unemployment benefits paid amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic involved fraud.

The state paid at least $ 11.4 billion, or about 10% of benefits paid during the pandemic, into funds that involved fraud, the California Department of Employment Development confirmed to The Hill. Seventeen percent of the remainder of total benefits paid are investigated.

“There is no sugar in reality,” California Labor Secretary Julie Su reported at a press conference Monday, The Los Angeles Times reported. “California did not have sufficient security measures in place to prevent this level of fraud, and criminals took advantage of the situation.”

The state has paid out $ 114 billion in unemployment benefits since the pandemic began in March, with authorities processing around 19 million claims.

Officials have warned that many of the 17% of claims under investigation could also involve fraud.

Su on Monday said the Trump administration failed to provide California with adequate advice and resources amid the pandemic, as many businesses were forced to shut down under health orders. She said almost all of the fraudulent claims were filed under a federal program that provides unemployment benefits to self-employed workers, independent contractors and others.

“We now know that as millions of Californians asked for help, international and national criminal networks were working behind the scenes, working tirelessly to steal unemployment benefits using sophisticated methods of identity theft.” , Su said, according to the Times.

The California Department of Employment Development announced last month that it was freezing 1.4 million jobless claims to verify identity.

The Ministry hired a contractor to verify the identity of the applicants, ID.me. The entrepreneur found that 35 percent of jobless claims nationwide had fraud issues.

The state is also struggling with a backlog of jobless claims amid the pandemic, which totaled 916,000 claims last week.

—Updated at 22:56