A week after it was revealed that hundreds of millions of dollars in state unemployment benefits were being sent out in the names of incarcerated inmates, Sunnyvale detectives nabbed five suspects who may have bilked the Employment Development Department of more than $1 million by using hundreds of stolen IDs.
In mid-November, Sunnyvale officers had stepped up their burglary detail in anticipation of the holiday season when they arrested 35-year-old George Ramirez of San Jose in a hotel.
There they found stolen social security cards, personal checks, utility bills, two hand guns, a shot gun and a machine for creating fake credit cards.
Investigators said he and four other suspects had been raiding Santa Clara County mailboxes and creating fake profiles to apply for at least $1 million in state unemployment benefits.
“In these trying times that everybody is in, local businesses are trying to survive and that EDD money is needed in our community, and these terrible people are stealing it from us,” said Sunnyvale Public Safety Captain Dan Pistore. “So, that makes their crime even more egregious to us. So, we’re happy to report that these guys are in custody.”
Police are still sorting through a mountain of seized evidence that points to at least a hundred victims, but there could possibly be many more.
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