A Social Security employee has been arrested and charged with using her position to approve benefits for dead people and then directing the payments to herself.

Myrna Faria, who worked for the agency in Puerto Rico, ran the scam for over a decade and managed to steal $1.8 million, authorities said.

She would submit false claims in the names of people she believed to be dead, then use her powers as a claims specialist to give them the OK.

“This is embarrassing and despicable conduct by a public official, someone called to serve the people, not take from them,” said Joseph González, the FBI’s special agent in charge in its San Juan office.

A grand jury indicted Ms. Faria on March 6 on 17 counts spanning mail fraud, identity theft, misuse of a Social Security number and theft of government funds.

Authorities said she filed claims in the names of 13 people, all of whom she thought were dead because of the length of inactivity in their Social Security accounts but who had not been officially reported to the agency as deceased.

She submitted the first claim on March 16, 2022, followed by seven more that year, four in 2013 and a final one in 2019. She is listed as the approving agent on each.

The indictment said Ms. Faria, who also went by Myrna Oliveras-Santiago, worked for Social Security from 1991 to 2019 but was still collecting on 10 accounts when she was indicted.

The indictment also says she continued to take steps to pursue the scam, including calling to check on the status of accounts.

The court documents do not say how investigators tipped to the scam, but officials were vehement in their denunciations.

“It is especially egregious when individuals that hold positions of public trust engage in criminal activity,” said W. Stephen Muldrow, the U.S. attorney for Puerto Rico.

The Washington Times this week reported on several payments to dead people made by government programs.

Social Security and Veterans Affairs benefits are common targets. Sometimes, payments are in error, but fraudsters also exploit payments to dead people.

One man was sentenced in February to 60 months in federal prison for stealing his father’s benefits after his death. Timothy Gritman went so far as to lighten his hair and eyebrows to impersonate his father to try to keep the payments flowing.

Another man managed to collect Social Security benefits from his aunt from 1977, when she died, until 2020 when investigators finally caught up with him.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.