Major Employee Fraud

     From a press release:

Cheikh Ahmet Tidiane Cisse, age 45, of Baltimore, Maryland, pleaded guilty today to federal charges of theft of government property and aggravated identity theft, in connection with a scheme in which Cisse filed fraudulent claims for Social Security benefits using fictitious identities and the identities of actual individuals, and attempted to collected over $236,000.  ...

Cisse was employed by the Social Security Administration (SSA) as a Claims Specialist in SSA’s Office of International Operations.  Cisse admitted that between July 2018 and March 2019, he filed fictitious claims for benefits using stolen identities and identity documents he obtained through the course of his employment with SSA in order to steal or attempt to steal over $236,000 from SSA.

According to his plea agreement, as part of his job, Cisse was responsible for reviewing the identity documents of social security claimants living abroad, such as passports, marriage certificates, and identity cards.  Cisse then created new, fictitious identities in SSA's database, often using information from the foreign identity documents he reviewed, which were issued social security numbers (SSNs).  Cisse used the fictitious identities to file fraudulent claims for social security divorced spouse survivor's benefits against actual deceased individuals, directing the benefits payments to debit cards or bank accounts he opened in the names of the fictitious identities using the identity documents he obtained through his employment.  Cisse sometimes provided his home address for that of the fictitious claimants, but also provided an address in Quebec, Canada, that corresponded to a mail forwarding service to which he subscribed, making it appear as if the fictitious claimants lived abroad.  Through this mail forwarding service, Cisse received mail associated with the scheme, including genuine social security cards in the names of the fictitious identities and benefits payments. ...