NEW YORK — A group of Brooklyn gang members with ties to the drill rap scene turned the COVID-19 unemployment program into a “bottomless ATM,” using stolen identities to score more than $4 million, police and federal authorities said.
Police caught wind of the fraud when members of the NYPD’s intelligence bureau noticed that members of the Canarsie-based Woo gang were making trips to California, renting houses, buying expensive cars and posing on social media with stacks of cash at the beginning of the pandemic.
That led to a federal probe with the Department of Labor Inspector General’s office – and on Thursday, the arrest of 11 suspects in a scheme to steal nearly $20 million in unemployment funds.
