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DENVER (KDVR) – Attorney General Phil Weiser and the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) announced Thursday that a new statewide task force will investigate and prosecute the unprecedented amount of fraud and identity theft.

CDLE leaders admit, the state shelled out millions to people who weren’t unemployed. It’s something they hope to end by having more eyes on scammers.

“In 2019, pre-pandemic, CDLE had just under 90 fraud cases. That’s 9-0. In 2020, we know that there were about 800,000 suspected fraud cases in Colorado,” said CDLE Executive Director Joe Barela.

That’s a nearly 9,000% increase in fraud cases in Colorado during the pandemic. CDLE saying they have flagged more than 1 million bogus requests.

“Assuming that these 1.1 million fraudulent claims paid out for their life cycle, we estimate that we’ve prevented about $7.5 billion in fraudulent benefits going out,” Barela said.

The state could not catch them all, handing out $6.5 million to bad actors.

They were able to do that through partnerships. Now, the state is launching a task force made up of CDLE investigators, the state’s bureau of investigation, Weiser and district attorneys across the state.

“The entire Colorado District Attorney’s Council has embraced this initiative because it’s not just in one county or jurisdiction, this is happening across our whole state,” Weiser said. “And finally if we get matters that are multi-state or international, we will differ them to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

The FOX31 Problem Solvers continue to get messages about fraud, some saying scammers are using the names of active employees at companies around the state to try to get benefits. CDLE emphasized the problem is not about their system being hacked.

 “This is fraudulent activity due to stolen identities, not a breach in CDLE’s system,” said CDLE Chief Information Officer Cher Haavind.

The task force is planning to hold its first meeting in a few days. So far, Weiser says the state has not made any arrests for unemployment fraud during the pandemic.