<story><title>Fresno lost $400k to a phishing scam in 2020 and never told the public</title><url>https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article259205608.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dataflow</author><text>If you think &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt;&amp;#x27;s bad: &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;California EDD admits paying as much as $31 billion in unemployment funds to criminals&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;
 &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;abc7news.com&amp;#x2F;california-edd-unemployment-fraud-ca-scam-insurance&amp;#x2F;10011810&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;abc7news.com&amp;#x2F;california-edd-unemployment-fraud-ca-sc...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>csharpminor</author><text>I will say if you think this is bad, you ought to read about Washington State’s loss of $650M to organized cyber crime: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.seattletimes.com&amp;#x2F;seattle-news&amp;#x2F;auditor-state-unemployment-system-wholly-unprepared-for-fraud-one-agency-employee-under-criminal-investigation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.seattletimes.com&amp;#x2F;seattle-news&amp;#x2F;auditor-state-unem...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pjc50</author><text>That sounds so large it has to be overstated?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m always a little suspicious of claims of benefit fraud that aren&amp;#x27;t backed up by court cases. They&amp;#x27;re very easy to inflate. Someone loses their job, fills in a form incorrectly, gets paid, the error is discovered a year later: was there really fraudulent intent, or is it just the combination of means-testing and the difficulty of discovering someone&amp;#x27;s true circumstances?</text></comment>
<story><title>Fresno lost $400k to a phishing scam in 2020 and never told the public</title><url>https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article259205608.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dataflow</author><text>If you think &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt;&amp;#x27;s bad: &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;California EDD admits paying as much as $31 billion in unemployment funds to criminals&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;
 &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;abc7news.com&amp;#x2F;california-edd-unemployment-fraud-ca-scam-insurance&amp;#x2F;10011810&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;abc7news.com&amp;#x2F;california-edd-unemployment-fraud-ca-sc...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>csharpminor</author><text>I will say if you think this is bad, you ought to read about Washington State’s loss of $650M to organized cyber crime: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.seattletimes.com&amp;#x2F;seattle-news&amp;#x2F;auditor-state-unemployment-system-wholly-unprepared-for-fraud-one-agency-employee-under-criminal-investigation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.seattletimes.com&amp;#x2F;seattle-news&amp;#x2F;auditor-state-unem...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>PeterisP</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d bet that at least a significant part of that fraud went not simply to criminals but to some state-level activity. $31 B is so huge that it is meaningful at very high levels (e.g. it&amp;#x27;s much larger than all the assistance, goods, weapons and financing provided to support Ukraine in the ongoing war), and for places like North Korea fraud and hacking is a large part of their foreign currency income (technically speaking, that would probably count as &amp;quot;export of services&amp;quot;).</text></comment>