California EDD recovers $1.1 billion from inactivated benefit cards

The state's Employment Development Department says they have recovered $1.1 billion in unemployment insurance funds that were found on inactivated benefit cards.

The recovered funds, found on 780,000 EDD cards that were inactivated, were from the emergency federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program and will be returned to the federal government, state officials said. 

it's the latest in a series of moves state officials have taken to combat unemployment fraud. Last month, EDD says it blocked a recent scheme that flooded its system with as many as 47,000 potentially fraudulent unemployment insurance claims filed by paper and fax, worth up to $560 million.

In the past 15 months, EDD officials say they've launched 1,525 investigations, made 467 arrests, secured 162 convictions, and seized about $3.5 million. Fraud claims overwhelmed California's unemployment insurance system pandemic, causing losses of at least $20 billion during the pandemic and preventing scores of legitimate claims from being paid out.