California may have sent out as much as $11 billion in pandemic unemployment benefits to fraudsters, officials said Monday. According to a press release (pdf), California’s Employment Development Department (EDD) has processed 19.5 million claims and paid out $114 billion in unemployment benefits since March 2020, when the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic hit the Golden State. An estimated 10 percent of those payments, or $11.4 billion, has been confirmed to be made to fraudulent claims. In addition, another 17 percent of those unemployment claims is under investigation after being flagged as suspicious. “EDD is now working with some of the country’s most successful fraud prevention businesses and law enforcement agencies to protect the state’s unemployment benefit system,” said Julie Su, secretary to California’s Labor and Workforce Development Agency. “We know that many Californians are waiting on payments, and EDD is working quickly to validate their claims and get …