Skye Schmeitz

The U.S. Inspector General’s office is investigating what could be a multi-state unemployment insurance fraud scheme that resulted in Massachusetts paying out at least $280,000 in fraudulent claims since March, according to state officials.

The Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development became aware of the suspicious patterns within the past two weeks, and officials say benefit payments obtained fraudulently have been stopped. An additional 500 claims were blocked before payments started, preventing $9.3 million in costs to the state had they gone undetected.

“I don’t know if they know it’s one individual or one entity but there are patterns that suggest it might be contained. These things are serious, but we also feel we have identified it and we expended very little before we were able to cut them off at the knees,” Labor and Workforce Development Secretary Rachel Kaprielian said.

The Inspector General’s investigation involves claims made in Massachusetts, as well as Kansas, Nevada, New York, Texas, Florida and New Mexico, a state labor official said. In Massachusetts, just fewer than