WORLD NEWS | Chinese hackers steal millions worth of Covid relief in US: report

washington [US]Dec. 8 (ANI): Chinese hackers stole at least $20 million in U.S. Covid relief payments, including unemployment insurance funds and Small Business Administration loans, NBC News quoted the country’s Secret Service as saying.

The Chinese government-linked hackers are from a Chengdu-based group called APT41. Other federal investigations into pandemic fraud also appear to point to hackers linked to foreign governments, the report said.

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“It’s crazy to think that this group isn’t targeting all 50 states,” Roy Dotson, the Secret Service’s national pandemic fraud recovery coordinator, told NBC.

The U.S. Secret Service declined to confirm the scope of the other investigations.

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According to NBC News, they said there are more than 1,000 ongoing investigations involving transnational and domestic criminals defrauding pro bono projects, and that APT41 is “a noteworthy actor.”

In recent months, the United States has seen an increase in espionage cases originating from China.

Last month, in three separate cases, the U.S. government charged 13 people, including members of China’s security and intelligence agencies and their proxies, with trying to illegally exert influence in the U.S. for the benefit of their own government.

“As these cases demonstrate, the Chinese government has attempted to interfere with the rights and freedoms of individual Americans and to undermine our judicial system that protects those rights. They have not been successful,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said, as quoted in a Justice Department press statement.

“The Department of Justice will not tolerate attempts by any foreign power to undermine the rule of law that is the foundation of our democracy. We will continue to resolutely protect the rights enjoyed by every individual in our country. We will defend the integrity of our institutions,” Garland added.

Seven Chinese nationals accused of participating in a scheme that resulted in the forcible deportation of Chinese nationals living in the United States were arrested in New York on October 20.

The defendants are accused of monitoring and participating in the harassment and coercion of a U.S. resident returning to Beijing as part of an international extrajudicial repatriation operation known as Operation Fox Hunt. (Arnie)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)