Comptroller: $12 million in PUA funds were given to deceased people

By The Star Staff

The island Department of Labor and Human Resources’ (DTRH by its initials in Spanish) Employment Security Bureau disbursed over $12 million in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) funds to dead people, a Comptroller’s Office (OCPR) report revealed on Wednesday.

The money was disbursed by beneficiaries who used the social security numbers of deceased individuals, an OCPR audit found.

The report indicates that $12.7 million was paid to 1,039 beneficiaries without validating their identity or income.

“These situations give rise to fraud schemes and issuing payments to those who do not meet the requirements,” Comptroller Yesmín Valdivieso Galib said in a written statement.

In addition, the comptroller found that the DTRH had not designated independent personnel to handle the functions of the Special Paying Officers, which facilitated errors in payments. The situation had already been pointed out in a previous audit.

The audit also pointed out delays in the delivery of requested information and documents, which hindered the audit process and led to the recommendation to avoid obstructing future investigations.

The revelation was made a week after a federal grand jury in the District of Puerto Rico returned 32 separate indictments charging 32 individuals with engaging in fraud to obtain PUA benefits totaling $981,071, according to W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico. The FBI and the United States Department of Labor Office of the Inspector General are in charge of the investigations with the assistance of the United States Postal Inspection Service and the DTRH.

According to the indictments, the defendants engaged in schemes to defraud the DTRH by submitting fraudulent applications to obtain unemployment insurance benefits which contained PUA funds.

Under the provisions of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, people who were business owners, self-employed workers, independent contractors, or gig workers qualified for federal PUA benefits administered by the DTRH if they previously performed such work in Puerto Rico and were unemployed, partially unemployed, unable to work, or unavailable to work due to a COVID-19-related reason.