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Criminals continue to use a wide variety of scams, including fraudulent, altered or counterfeit checks, to bilk funds from individual victims and federal financial-assistance programs during the novel coronavirus pandemic, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

In a 6-page advisory, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network warned that fraudsters have sent out batches of fake checks that purport to expedite COVID-19 economic impact payments, or EIPs, to recipients who verify their banking data and other personal information online or after dialing a certain number.

“Fraudsters then use the information obtained to commit various crimes, such as identity theft and the unauthorized access of bank accounts,” FinCEN warned in the advisory, which summarizes the bureau’s analysis of recently filed suspicious activity reports, or SARs.

Criminals have also come into the possession of legitimate EIP checks, then “chemically altered” the names of their intended beneficiaries and amounts of payment before depositing them at ATMs or through mobile devices.

U.S. officials have separately observed counterfeit duplicates of digital images of checks created by the Treasury Department, according to FinCEN, but such copies often show discrepancies with their numbering, coloring, font and paper type.

Criminals at times have resorted to stealing EIPs from mailboxes, requesting EIPs for ineligible parties or applying for them with the names of unknowing or coerced individuals, and using stolen personal data and false bank-account information to dupe the IRS.

“Corona Virus,” “COVID-19,” “Stimulus” and other terms associated with EIPs have been used in emails, texts and phone calls to bait individuals into disclosing their personal information, account numbers and passwords.

Banks and other financial institutions should separately screen for attempts to defraud residents of nursing homes during the pandemic, FinCEN advised Wednesday.

Red flags of COVID-19 schemes against elderly residents include attempts to deposit one or more EIP checks on behalf of others. Deposits made into a nursing home or assisted living facility’s account that are not subsequently transferred to the intended recipient should also raise suspicion.

“This may be an indication that the business is inappropriately withholding residents’ EIP funds,” FinCEN advised.

Other private firms may control someone’s finances and abuse that power to seize and use that person’s EIP for purposes of wage garnishment or debt collection, according to the bureau.

Wednesday’s advisory constitutes the latest of a series that FinCEN has issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic since January 2020, when federal officials first confirmed that the virus had spread to the U.S.

Previous notices outlined the mechanics of similar scams against the Economic Disaster Loan Program, Paycheck Protection Program, state unemployment insurance programs and other financial assistance schemes.

A Feb. 3 advisory flagged coronavirus-related fraud schemes against federal and private health insurance plans.

The advisory’s basis on data culled from SARs demonstrates implicitly that criminals view COVID-19 as an opportunity to prey upon the U.S. financial system, said Braddock Stevenson, former deputy associate director of FinCEN’s enforcement division.

Most of the red flags in the advisory describe basic indicators of fraud and money laundering, showing that the bureau expects financial institutions to stay vigilant amid the global pandemic, said Stevenson, now counsel at the O’Melveny law firm in Washington, D.C.

“As a reminder, some of the largest BSA [Bank Secrecy Act] fines were based on activity which occurred during the 2007 financial crisis,” he said.

Contact Valentina Pasquali at vpasquali@acams.org