Officials with the state Employment Security Department (ESD) have sharply increased their estimate for the number of phony unemployment claims that criminals filed this spring in what became the largest fraud in Washington history.
The update, issued Wednesday, came a day before the state auditor’s office announced that the first of five audits into the fraud and other pandemic-related issues at ESD will be released Friday morning.
On Wednesday, the ESD revised the number of “known, suspected or probable” fraudulent claims from this spring’s fraud to 122,000, a 41% jump from the agency’s estimate in August.
The ESD also revised the total stolen in the fraud to $600 million, up 4% from $576 million. The agency also reported that the amount recovered had risen to $357 million, from $340 million in August, for a net loss of $243 million.