On December 27, 2024, Darmani Hawkins, now a 21-year-old, was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to his role in two massive fraud schemes when he was a teenager during the pandemic to steal more than $1 million in COVID-19 relief funds and checks from the mail. Not a very health coping mechanism during lockdown, unfortunately.
From 2020 through 2021, Hawkins and his co-conspirators submitted fraudulent unemployment applications to the states of Ohio, Illinois, Alabama, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Maryland and California. Once the state’s unemployment agency approved the applications, the state mailed the unemployment benefits to Hawkins in the form of debit cards. Hawkins and his co-conspirators fraudulently received almost a half a million dollars in unemployment benefits.
In 2023, Hawkins expanded his scheme as only the Millennial Generation knows how. Using social media as a platform he recruited postal workers to steal checks from the U.S. Postal Service in exchange for a fee. Hawkins also recruited people for the use of their established bank accounts to deposit the checks stolen from the mail. For a fee, they only needed to deposit the stolen checks into their bank accounts. Hawkins would then withdraw the fraudulently obtained funds. Hawkins obtained more than $700,000 in the stolen check scheme.
Great job by the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in this investigation.
Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “Aurora man gets prison for theft, mail fraud schemes that netted $1.1 million” published by Record Courier on December 27, 2024.
An Aurora man was sentenced to five years in federal prison for his part in stealing more than $1.1 million in COVID relief funds and the theft of checks from U.S. mail. Federal Judge Donald C. Nugent sentenced Darmani Hawkins, 21, on Dec. 17 in U.S. Sixth District Court for the Northern District of Ohio in Cleveland. Nugent also ordered Hawkins pay more than $680,000 in restitution.
Hawkins submitted false unemployment claims to obtain COVID pandemic benefits from 2020 through 2021, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio said in a media release issued Thursday. Then in 2023, officials said, he conspired to steal checks out of the United States mail, deposit them, and keep the proceeds.
