Preparing for a post-pandemic fraud landscape

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a host of public health crises — and unearthed more opportunities for fraud. Scammers and fraudsters are waiting in the wings to capitalize on lax controls and vulnerable public assistance programs. Here the authors cover ways to enrich and strengthen your organization’s fraud risk management program to reduce threats from bad actors and to help spot the red flags of criminal activity.

Russian mobsters, Chinese hackers and Nigerian scammers have found a common victim: pandemic aid organizations. In June, the FBI obtained a warrant to hunt through the Google accounts of Abedemi Rufai, a Nigerian state government official. According to an affidavit, they found “ingredients” for a massive cyberfraud scheme targeting U.S. government benefits, which included stolen bank, credit card and tax information, as well as emails showing dozens of false unemployment claims in seven states. Rufai was arrested in May at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York as he prepared to fly first class back to Nigeria. His case offers a small window into how foreign criminals have fleeced the country’s COVID relief packages. (See “‘Easy money’: How international scam artists pulled off an epic theft of Covid benefits,” by Ken Dilanian, Kit Ramgopal and Chloe Atkins, NBC News, Aug. 15, 2021.)