UPDATED: RI DLT Cooperating with Investigation of “Imposter Fraud”
GoLocalProv News Team
UPDATED: RI DLT Cooperating with Investigation of “Imposter Fraud”
The United States Secret Service is leading the federal investigation.
“The kind of fraud we are seeing is called imposter fraud and it results from a previous identify theft. The Rhode Island Unemployment Insurance System has not been compromised or ‘hacked,'’’ said Angelika Pellegrino, Chief Public Affairs Officer at DLT.
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On Saturday, GoLocal reported that the U.S. Secret Service has reportedly uncovered a massive fraud ring that has hit Rhode Island and at least seven other states, according to multiple reports.
The depth of the impact on Rhode Island is unknown yet. To date, more than 218,000 have filed for unemployment insurance in Rhode Island.
“Investigators from the Secret Service said they had information implicating a well-organized Nigerian fraud ring, and that stolen information such as social security numbers had allowed the network to file claims on behalf of people who in many cases had not lost their jobs,” reported the New York Times in a breaking story Saturday night.
A top-level Rhode Island State Police official told GoLocal that the fraud may be in the thousands or tens of thousands of cases.
Most of the fraudulent claims have so far been concentrated in Washington state, but evidence also pointed to similar attacks in Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Wyoming,” reported the Times.
Since the coronavirus hit more than 36 million Americans have been forced to file unemployment claims leaving state offices overrun with filings.
Lack of Authorizations
"A federal fraud investigator who spoke with KrebsOnSecurity on condition of anonymity said many states simply don’t have enough controls in place to detect patterns that might help better screen out fraudulent unemployment applications, such as looking for multiple applications involving the same Internet addresses and/or bank accounts. The investigator said in some states fraudsters need only to submit someone’s name, Social Security number and other basic information for their claims to be processed," reports KrebsOnSecurity.
This story was first published 5/17/20 5:52 PM