https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2021/01/25/edd-27-of-california-unemployment-payments-could-be-fraudulent-state-says/

EDD: 27% of California unemployment payments could be fraudulent, state says

GameStonk is a distraction from a lot of things.

“Roughly 10% of the $114 billion in claims are confirmed fraudulent, another 17% are potentially fraudulent,” California Labor Secretary Julie Su said during a question-and-answer session regarding the EDD’s efforts to combat unemployment insurance fraud. If 27 percent of the claims are determined to be fraudulent, that would amount to more than $30 billion.

Crime rings operating out of Nigeria, China and Russia have unleashed a wave of fraud that has focused on California’s unemployment benefits as their most tempting target.

The state has already acknowledged that it has paid about $400 million in the names of prison inmates, and last month, federal prosecutors charged a former state labor agency worker, a prison inmate and a parolee in a scheme to defraud California’s scandal-scarred unemployment insurance system.