A Woodhaven man and a Dearborn-area woman are facing federal charges after investigators say they orchestrated a sprawling unemployment insurance fraud scheme that generated approximately $4,117,788 in fraudulent benefits by filing more than 400 claims across 32 states. Shawn Carter and Danielle Thomas are accused of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, with a preliminary hearing scheduled in Detroit on Friday.
The case was laid out in a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General in federal court in Detroit on August 1, as first reported by ClickOnDetroit. According to the outlet's review of the complaint, investigators linked Carter and Thomas to suspected fraudulent claims filed between March 15, 2020, and March 10, 2022, exploiting the pandemic-era expansion of unemployment benefits that ran from March 2020 through September 4, 2021. Federal investigators identified at least 409 allegedly fraudulent unemployment insurance claims tied to the pair.
Investigators say the scheme relied on online unemployment insurance claims filed rapidly and in bulk, often in other people's names, with electronic transfers routed through data centers in Virginia and Colorado before benefits were converted into funds loaded onto Bank of America debit cards. Those cards could then be withdrawn at ATMs, and the complaint says fraudulent claims generated debit cards mailed to Michigan addresses that were used for cash withdrawals in metro Detroit.
Search of Woodhaven Home Turns Up Fake IDs
The case dates back to July 13, 2023, when investigators with Northville Township police searched Carter's Woodhaven home. Per the same account, police seized dozens of fake ID cards, banking documents, cashier's checks and counterfeit Social Security cards, along with several California unemployment insurance debit cards issued in other people's names. Investigators say they identified at least 68 suspected fraudulent UI claims filed in Carter's name and 26 additional suspected claims tied to Thomas' home address.
One California claim tied to Detroit reportedly received $20,100 in unemployment benefits, and a separate California claim listed at a Detroit address received $20,400 in benefits on July 23, 2020. The complaint notes that the California claimant said they never received benefits or gave anyone permission to file on their behalf. Federal investigators say they identified Carter as the person seen in Bank of America ATM surveillance images from an August 25, 2020 withdrawal made with one of the fraudulent cards.
Arrest at a Dearborn Credit Union
Thomas was arrested on October 12, 2021, after Dearborn police were dispatched to Dearborn Federal Credit Union following a report of fraud in progress. Police say she used a fraudulent credit card to attempt a withdrawal that day and gave officers a counterfeit Pennsylvania driver's license. The complaint states that police later found multiple fake driver's licenses bearing Thomas' picture, along with personal identifying information, claim details, email accounts and conversations about unemployment fraud on her phone.
Investigators say that as the arrest was unfolding, Thomas texted Carter that police were on scene and that she had been handcuffed, and Carter allegedly told her to delete all her messages. Messages exchanged between the two on October 5, 2021, reportedly referenced a Bank of America unemployment debit card. A separate claim filed in Hawaii on November 18, 2020, allegedly used another man's Social Security number; when questioned in July 2024, Carter said he was a victim of identity theft and denied filing that claim.
Facing Years in Federal Prison
Carter and Thomas are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1349, a conspiracy to commit wire fraud conviction carries a statutory maximum of 20 years in federal prison, while aggravated identity theft under 18 U.S.C. § 1028A carries a mandatory minimum of two additional years that must run consecutively to any other sentence, according to Varghese Summersett.
The case fits a pattern of pandemic-era unemployment fraud prosecutions that has repeatedly landed in the Eastern District of Michigan. Hoodline previously reported that a Detroit man was sentenced to over four years in prison and ordered to pay more than $900,000 in restitution for siphoning benefits from Michigan, Pennsylvania and Maryland onto prepaid Bank of America debit cards. In February 2026, federal prosecutors in Detroit finished sentencing the last of eight defendants in a $7.7 million multi-state scheme, with ringleader DeAngelo Jackson-Portwood receiving 61 months for exploiting unemployment programs and SBA loans using stolen identities, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Two years earlier, authorities completed sentencing 15 people in a Detroit-based scheme led by Sharodney Harrison that generated nearly 600 fraudulent claims across 19 states and caused more than $2 million in losses.
Bank of America's Role in Pandemic-Era Debit Cards
Bank of America served as the contract debit card issuer for unemployment programs in numerous states during the pandemic, including Michigan and California, making it a frequent target for fraudsters seeking cash withdrawals. The bank's handling of those programs drew its own regulatory scrutiny: in July 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency assessed $225 million in penalties against Bank of America for botched administration and improper freezing of state unemployment prepaid debit cards across 12 states.
The scale of the alleged Carter and Thomas scheme reflects a broader national failure that regulators and lawmakers have been tallying for years. The CARES Act, passed in March 2020, created the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program and added a $600 weekly federal supplement while relying on self-certification rules that state workforce agencies struggled to verify amid the rapid rollout, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The Government Accountability Office estimated in September 2023 that total fraud in pandemic-era unemployment insurance programs reached between $100 billion and $135 billion nationwide, or roughly 11% to 15% of all benefits disbursed between April 2020 and May 2023.
In March 2026 congressional testimony, U.S. Department of Labor Inspector General Anthony P. D'Esposito said federal authorities had opened more than 200,000 investigative matters tied to pandemic unemployment fraud and estimated that at least $76 billion in benefits was stolen by domestic and international fraudsters. That same month, the Department of Labor and its Office of Inspector General began issuing formal demand letters to financial institutions requiring them to freeze and preserve funds held in prepaid debit card accounts linked to suspected fraudulent claims across multiple states, part of an ongoing effort to claw back stolen benefits still sitting on cards. It remains an open question how much of the $4.1 million tied to Carter and Thomas might be recovered through forfeiture or account freezes, or how the pair allegedly obtained stolen identities spanning 32 states.
