Many Covid relief programs have been subject to fraud by scammers, but a whole slew of international scam artists have taken advantage of the enhanced unemployment benefits offered up to those affected by the pandemic. Russian scammers, Chinese hackers, and Nigerian scammers have used stolen identities easily accessed from data breaches and relaxed verification requirements to make bogus claims for Covid aid. Aging state unemployment systems also contributed to the problem. The scams are so widespread, we don't really know how much money has been stolen, but it is believed to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Kit Ramgopal, reporter with the investigative unit at NBC News, joins us for how they did it.




Next, the pandemic has changed the way we eat and what chefs serve us. Restaurants are still trying to recover from prolonged closures, supply chain issues, and lack of staff. In response to all of that we saw menus slimmed down to optimize to-go orders, which is still the case in many areas, but we also saw complete menu overhauls that limited seafood because of costs and less complicated menus that are easier to execute. Patricia Escárcega, reporting fellow at The Counter, joins us for more.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.