OREANDA-NEWS. Half of the US unemployment benefits issued during the pandemic have been stolen and taken out of the country. This is approximately $ 400 billion, according to the American edition Axios, citing ID.me, which is trying to prevent this type of fraud. Even banks intercepted money for "their own", for example, intended to support small businesses in different regions.

The United States spent more than anyone else in the world on direct payments to the population and business - over $ 3 trillion, but the bureaucratic machine was malfunctioning. First, according to the Office of Government Oversight (GOA), the US Treasury has allocated $ 1.4 billion to pay out more than a million Americans who, it turns out, have already died. This may be a mistake of officials - they did not have access to the full data of the US Social Security Administration, and they sent out aid to the relatives of the deceased. Part of the aid has been cashed.

Second, up to 50% of all payments are stolen by criminals through fake benefit claims that used the stolen identity of US citizens, says Blake Hall, CEO of ID.me.

The size of the amount and the cross-border nature of the fraud have become a national security issue for the country. Heywood Talkov, CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions, believes that at least 70% of US benefits over the past year stolen by impostors are ultimately withdrawn from the country and the money ends up in the hands of cross-border criminal syndicates who make extra money from illegal migration and on illegal trade in the United States. The rest was stolen by domestic fraudsters.