Washington halts unemployment payments for 2 days after finding $1.6 million in fraudulent claims amid coronavirus pandemic

Washington state officials said Thursday they’re stopping unemployment payments for two days while they attempt to block a gush of fraudulent claims aimed at stealing some of the billions of dollars that Congress directed to workers left jobless amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Between March and April, the number of fraudulent claims for unemployment benefits jumped 27-fold to 700, the state Employment Security Department (ESD) told The Seattle Times. During that same period, the amount of money bled off by suspected f