ICYMI| Talk about a boondoggle. The Obama administration knew there would be scammers trying to collect benefits illegally, but decided it was more important to rubber-stamp every claim keep from delaying benefits so they could make sure the applicants were eligible. But, I’m guessing they did not expect half of the money to be stolen.
Had the money not been stolen, they could have given every American, who was eligible, $1,200.
Experts estimate that 70% of the stolen money went to organized crime. That’s 280 billion for all of you liberals out there. That means it not only involves stolen money but also hurts our national security by funding organized crime.
Axios published a report where they found estimates on the amount of money stolen that estimated 50% of the benefits were stolen. They are planning on making changes to prevent the theft but it is too little, too late.
The report showed various ways of how the claims were able to be stolen:
“Mules” — low-level criminals — are given debit cards and asked to withdraw money from ATMs. That money then gets transferred abroad, often via bitcoin.
Unemployment became where the big money was — and was also being run by bureaucrats who weren’t as quick to crack down on criminals as private companies normally are.
Unemployment fraud is now offered on the dark web on a software-as-a-service basis, much like ransomware. States without fraud-detection services are naturally targeted the most.
Haywood Talcoive, the CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions, told Axios that most of the money went to China, Nigeria, Russia, and elsewhere. he also added that the operations were state-sponsored but he offered no evidence of that. But, those countries do this regularly, so it would be within the realm of possibility.
The mules get ATM cards and they draw out the cash and it gets shipped overseas.
One big factor was the $600 extra per week in unemployment benefits, which is now $300. The extra money is what lured organized crime to take advantage of the system.
Normally without the extra money due to the pandemic, organized crime doesn’t bother trying to cheat the system. Just another nail in Biden’s coffin.
