COVID-19
Brooklyn ‘Woo Gang’ Members Used 800 Stolen ID’s to Receive $4 Million in Covid Relief Funds
A Brooklyn-based gang, the “Woo gang” got their hands on more than $4 million in COVID-19 relief cash before they were caught and charged. 11 suspects in total were charged Thursday.
The gang members boasted about the scam in a music video, the feds said. The New York Post reports the criminal complaint against them reveals the individuals used personal information, including driver’s license numbers, from 800 people to submit unemployment claims adding up to roughly $20 million.
The gang members were able to receive around $4.3 million in total from the unemployment program between March 2020 and October 2021. In addition to bragging about their successful scamming in a rap music video for the song ‘Trappin’, many of the members also “flashed stacks of the cash on social media.”
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace said he will continue to go after gang members attempting to rip off the U.S. government. “These government programs are designed to provide financial assistance to those who are most in need during an unprecedented pandemic” said Peace.
“Unfortunately government aid programs have long been a feeding frenzy for scammers but the scale and the magnitude of the fraud in the unemployment program created by the CARES act has reached staggering levels” said Nino Perrotta, President of Sequoia Securities Group.
“Unfortunately because of the haste in implementing the government programs, they continue to lack the necessary checks and balances required in securing the programs overall integrity” added Perrotta. “With regards to recovery of these stolen assets, unless large sums of the money is in cash at the time they were arrested, or in bank accounts in the names of the alleged defendants, the process for recovery is both time consuming and very technical.”
Feds recovered messages of the suspects, Christopher Jean Pierre, who bought the identifying information of his victims, such as driver’s license numbers, for $150 each. Jean Pierre made the purchases from someone identified as “Skyscraper” on an encrypted messaging app.
Peace said “this Office and its law enforcement partners will vigorously prosecute gang members and anyone else who exploits the pandemic and steals from taxpayer-funded programs.”
Have we not learned our lesson? The now infamous National Institutes of Health has renewed a grant to EcoHealth Alliance for research on the “risk of bat coronavirus spillover emergence.” The news is shocking to many due to multiple agencies of the U.S. government supporting the lab leak theory of Covid’s origin.
“Zoonotic coronaviruses (CoVs) represent a significant threat to global health, as demonstrated by the emergence of SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2,” a press release read. “Bats were identified as the wildlife reservoirs of SARS-CoV by EcoHealth Alliance, and since then, we have published hundreds of novel SARS-related CoV (SARSr-CoV) sequences from wildlife in China and across Southeast Asia.”
In order to “ease” concerns and some objections, the press release noted on-the-ground work under the auspices of this new grant will not be conducted in China. The study is specific to southern China, but the “renewed work will involve collaboration only between EcoHealth Alliance and the Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School.”
All “recombinant virus culture or infection experiments” will also be removed from the research process. The press release assured that the research would not be “gain of function,” which involves extracting viruses from animals and engineering them in a lab to make them more transmissible or dangerous to humans.
The Biden administration has been supportive. National Review reports:
In February, national-security council communications coordinator John Kirby said the Biden administration supports gain-of-function research despite the potential risks as long as that it is pursued in a safe and transparent manner.
“[The president] believes that [the research is] important to help prevent future pandemics, which means he understands that there has to be legitimate scientific research into . . . the potential sources of pandemics so that we understand [them] and so we can prevent them from happening,” Kirby said.
However, let’s not forget:
in February, FBI director Christopher Wray told Fox News that Covid likely escaped from a laboratory in China, issuing the first public opinion of the sort from the agency on the origins of the virus.
“The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” Wray said. “Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab.”
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Anne Leonardi
February 21, 2022 at 5:18 pm
So much money was stolen from the government handouts that will never be reclaimed. My husband received a letter during that time saying that he had applied for unemployment benefits. Of course he never did and he contacted the department which had sent it to him. He never heard another word. So many scams will go unpunished because of NY’s lenient laws. It’s absolutely sickening.
Stephane
February 21, 2022 at 7:28 pm
Thanks to all the DEMON RATS AGs, and the DEMON RATS mayors, and the “defund the police” imbeciles, as well as the “””senile rapist racist chinese buffoon” in the White House and his co-conspirators, pelosi, scheemer, “44 the TRAITOR”, etc the WELFARE system has created a slew of LAZIES who find nothing better to do than to scheme the system!
Thank you DEMON RATS!
ALL OF YOU who signed on these bills with the RINOS TRAITORS!
Patrick
February 21, 2022 at 7:58 pm
We all know the chances of one dime being recovered from this predictable scam is slim to none, with an emphasis on none. These thugs will be slapped on the wrist & made to promise not to do this again. Tsk,tsk
John
February 22, 2022 at 2:25 am
What do you expect from KneeGrow’s????
Richard
February 22, 2022 at 2:19 pm
Did he have to give back his Michel Jordan’s? That had to hurt?:)
I heard they were going to give a large portion to the sisters of the poor and send one of their members to Congress. Man even belonging to a gang doesn’t protect you in this world today.
Disgusted
February 22, 2022 at 7:55 pm
So what is being done about that?
Sad4theUS
February 24, 2022 at 3:35 pm
I can’t imagine who all cheated to steal money from the covid relief… It’s in the billions, and it’s a pretty long line with the Democrats in the lead.