Bulgarian UC benefit scammers took at least £50m, possibly £250m per annum, via complex fraud.

[Papyrophile]

There's a trial happening in north London right now, with five Bulgarians in the dock for organising the largest benefit fraud operation ever in the UK. It was detected by the Bulgarian police. Where were the UK authorities during this? Asleep?

A link to the Telegraph, but paywalled, so good luck accessing it. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/28/bulgarian-town-boomed-from-uks-biggest-benefits-fraud/

This is insane. Are people entitled to British benefits without having to contribute to the system at all? That can't be right surely!?

How can this pose even happen? Britain is an absolute joke

It was a very carefully run fraud. "Consumers" subscribed two or three months of payment income to the frauds, and then just let the proceeds roll in.

I haven't been able to see any more information than the Telegraph article provides as it's not on the BBC or any other respectable news source.

I saw it on BBC last month:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-68774242

This particular scheme may have been closed but how many replicas are there? Any variations on the same scale?

Given how tough it appears to be to claim benefits legitimately here, how can this be happening?

@TestingTestingWonTooFree that's the only authentication I have had, so thank you. If this scam ran from 2016 until 2021, then it looks like a £250m hole. It's a long way from the usual claims around benefits. I don't object to paying tax to fund education and health and infrastructure, or UK citizens on hard times or with serious health problems, but I draw a line at the thought of funding another country's criminals.

You would think it couldn’t be right, but no no, anyone and his dog can move here and start claiming…. Absolute joke and to think our own citizens can hardly afford to feed themselves. This is why so many folk voted Brexit.

It’s disgusting from
start to finish. The amount is eye watering

I hope they are deported when they’re out of prison!! I’ve got a funny feeling soft touch Britain won’t enforce it though and they’ll get to stay 😤

The BBC article sayys it was £53.9m over the 5 years, not the £250m you claim?

Maybe it's different if you are on an EU passport, but DH is here quite legitmately, on an Ancestry visa, that we paid a fortune to apply for, plus £3,000 odd NHS contributions upfront, and he can't claim a thing (correctly so, in my view). His visa and all other documents have "No access to public funds written all over them."

Well, of course they got away with it. The DWP were far too busy hounding people on carers allowance for being pennies over the limit. And given that they couldn't be bothered to.use the tracking systems they had to notify people, is it any wonder that this happened with UC fraud? The DWP like to go after easy, vulnerable targets rather than get stuck in tackling gangs like this one.

Will the government be able to seize all the assets they found

Yes it is absolutely disgusting

Anyone from the EU maybe used to be able to? Not anyone from other countries

Exactly, they are convicted but where is the tax payers money?

I read about this and just couldn’t quite believe it! Genuinely shocking.
What happens to all that money now?

DWP didn't know it was a gang, it appeared to be large numbers of individuals each claiming what they were entitled to, which shows DWP don't check claims very well if none of those thousands of applications were spotted as fraudulent. And that suggests large numbers of 'real' individuals may be getting away with fraudulent claims too.

It's the sentencing that's happening now - they pleaded guilty in April.

The £50 million is the known amount. The Bulgarian policeman who discovered the fraud has estimated it at £200 million.

As to how they did it: a lot of well organised fraudulent applications and fake documents.

It's heartbreaking to see the rise in numbers of homeless people in my area who are British people struggling on streets while criminals on foreign lands are scamming British taxpayers money.

Frankly I suspect fraud is widespread. The fraud relating to Covid payments was also millions, especially the 'loans' and the eat out campaign.

I don't think anyone has any control on this stuff it's a shit show, same that they don't know where all the asylum seekers are.

None of that counts if you were EU citizen. They could claim everything even for kids that’s didn’t live here. Then you have to jump through hoops for you DH to be allowed here….

The asylum seeker thing is easily resolved - bring in mandatory ID cards. It's common in many countries, and I've never totally understood the UK's extreme objection to it.

Yes, sorry that’s what I meant.

This EU citizen thanks you for your sweeping generalisations about us. 🙄

The conservatives under George Osborne put in huge cuts to the civil service and put it under other pressures. Also cuts to police, local government and legal system. This is how things get missed