{"id":48020,"date":"2021-03-11T22:43:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T05:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/scam-targets-over-1-million-including-la-plata-countys-sheriff-and-top-prosecutor\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:41:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:41:15","slug":"scam-targets-over-1-million-including-la-plata-countys-sheriff-and-top-prosecutor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/scam-targets-over-1-million-including-la-plata-countys-sheriff-and-top-prosecutor\/","title":{"rendered":"Scam targets over 1 million, including La Plata County\u2019s sheriff and top prosecutor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"La
La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office Deputy Reid Brubaker investigates a fraud case in February. Unemployment insurance fraud is a growing problem, with both La Plata County Sheriff Sean Smith and District Attorney Christian Champagne saying they\u2019ve been hit by the scam.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

There\u2019s probably a pretty active scam going around when both your sheriff and district attorney report getting hit.<\/p>\n

La Plata County Sheriff Sean Smith and 6th Judicial District Attorney Christian Champagne have received letters stating their \u201cclaims for unemployment benefits\u201d have been received by the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.<\/p>\n

Scores of other Southwest Colorado residents who have not filed for unemployment benefits have received the same letter from the CDLE.<\/p>\n

The idea behind the scheme is for the fraudsters to successfully get the state agency to issue an unemployment check to a person who is using a false identity to make the claim.<\/p>\n

The CDLE reports it has received 1.1 million fraudulent claims since the pandemic began and prevented $7 billion in false payments from going out.<\/p>\n

The scam is so common the state agency includes information in its letters about how to submit a fraud report to CDLE online<\/a> if people suspect their individual data was obtained illegally.<\/p>\n

Fraud cases are up 400% in February compared with February 2020, said Chris Burke, La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office spokesman. The cases included 21 identity thefts, four fraud impersonations and one fraud by check.<\/p>\n

But by far, the most prevalent reports are fraudulent unemployment insurance claims, Burke said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven Sheriff Smith was hit with the unemployment fraud and took measures to try to protect himself,\u201d Burke said. \u201cUnfortunately, a lot of these cases happen. The suspects usually are in other countries. And it\u2019s hard to prosecute these cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jessica Hudgins Smith, spokeswoman with the CDLE\u2019s Division of Unemployment Insurance, said reports of unemployment fraud grew during the COVID-19 pandemic, when unemployment benefits were enhanced. The scams remain a persistent problem, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have established the Colorado Unemployment Fraud Task Force,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are partnering with the Colorado attorney general and other state and federal agencies to investigate and prosecute UI fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

CDLE\u2019s main goals are to identify fraud, prevent scams and release any benefits owed to legitimate claimants, she said.<\/p>\n

Since the spike in fraudulent unemployment claims, Hudgins Smith said CDLE has:<\/p>\n

Contracted with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, an accounting firm, to manage fraud analytics with an ultimate goal to create a fraud-detection system using the data.<\/em>Tripled the size of CDLE\u2019s criminal investigative team, with another round of hiring currently underway.<\/em>Hired an external firm to provide additional investigators.<\/em>Held town halls for businesses to address concerns and provide information.<\/em>Champagne said Burke is correct \u2013 most reports of fraud don\u2019t result in local or state criminal charges.<\/p>\n

About two or three times a year, Champagne said, he prosecutes individuals for falsifying unemployment insurance claims \u2013 for example by claiming too many dependents or listing inflated salaries when employed.<\/p>\n

But he said it\u2019s almost unheard of to prosecute an unemployment fraud claim based on theft of someone else\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n

Many fraudulent unemployment claims trace back to sophisticated hackers obtaining personal identifiable information and selling it on the dark web.<\/p>\n

Major companies that have been hit by data breeches in 2020 include Marriott hotels, MGM Grand Hotels, Nintendo, Zoom and Magellan Health.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute. Many times, it\u2019s just too convoluted to track the person down,\u201d Champagne said.<\/p>\n

Champagne said he himself had received a letter alerting him of CDLE\u2019s receipt of his \u201cclaim for unemployment benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt happened to me about six or eight months ago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

spike 400% during past year, according to Sheriff\u2019s Office<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1503,13,28,2632,52,29,4259,4549],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-fraud","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-labor-market","tag-law-enforcement","tag-newsletter","tag-newsletter-sign-up","tag-unemployment"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87290,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48020\/revisions\/87290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48020"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}