Maryland reports over 508,000 new potentially fraudulent unemployment insurance claims since May

Maryland has detected over 508,000 new potentially fraudulent unemployment insurance claims since the beginning of May, the state’s Department of Labor announced.

The new figures released on Monday follow the state’s announcement last year that it had uncovered a vast operation using identity theft to commit coronavirus unemployment insurance fraud, after the federal government provided an historic expansion of the unemployment benefits system as a result of the Covid-19 crisis. Since the start of the pandemic, more than 1.3 million unemployment insurance claims investigated by the state have been confirmed as fraudulent, according to a release from the state’s Labor Department.

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