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 why they are reviewing claims at the moment and doing checks.

It was apparently spotted because DWP noticed the same phone number and/or address being used on multiple claimes

That really isn't true. You need to be habitually resident in the UK to claim universal credit.

This was covered on BBC news at lunchtime. I expect it will be covered on the 6 o clock news too for anyone interested. The segment I saw said that they would have got longer if they defrauded the tax office, but the court was limited in sentencing because they defrauded the benefits office (not the tax office).

It was crazy to see the scale of their operation. Shelves and shelves of mobile phones and sim cards used to make claims in different names, folders and spreadsheets of it all and wads and wads of cash.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c844g4kpjxdo

It was spotted in a town in Bulgaria who noticed a lot of money floating around a declining town, and investigated. He brought it to the attention of the UK authorities, and the DWP proved it was industrial fraud by collating recurring names and addresses.

I hope they get deported to complete their sentences at Bulgarian expense. To ask the UK taxpayer to stump up £40k a head for 25 years of imprisonment is adding insult to injury.

I think you misunderstand the term of ‘sweeping generalisations’. Saying that EU citizens are (or were) allowed to claim everything is a fact, not a generalisation.

To say ‘all of them do’, is a sweeping generalisation but I never said that, I said they were allowed to.

I was referring to child benefit. They were very much allowed to claim for kids that weren’t living here. Perhaps that’s changed now.

But surely they defrauded the tax office as well, unless they have declared all the money they received because of the fraud?

And yet it's the disabled and carers that the DWP go after. It's fucked. 😡

Because the recipients of the fraudulently obtained money didn't actually live in the UK, they would not have been subject to income tax. Apparently if HMRC had been involved, the sentences would have been significantly longer but the DWP doesn't have the same prosecuting powers as the tax office. That's my understanding, based on one of the BBC articles linked above.

Yes and one of the ways they can prove they are habitually resident is to set up shell companies which don't actually exist such as shops which will then report their earnings to HMRC so it looks like they actually live here. Very few checks have been made by HMRC on the legitimacy of these companies until recently. As it looks as though they are earning a decent amount, they aren't called in for appointments so they can continue to claim U C without question.

Lots of these people aren't even in this country. They make all sorts of excuses not to attend appointments to continue their claims when they are caught. They will then produce false documents showing school attendance, doctors registration etc to prove they are here (the documents are often laughably poor).

The old system of JSA was that if you didn't turn up to sign on, your money was not released from the system. Now it can continue to be paid to people and their full families who aren't even in this country.

Multiple claims of housing costs are made for the same properties. False childcare costs are claimed.

Any possible loophole is exposed and abused.

How can someone claim and not live in the U.K? 😡

See, one of my friends was caught out by the habitual residence thing when she moved to UC from TC. She was born abroad but her parents came to live here when she was a toddler, she was educated here, studied and worked here, has children who are British citizens. But UC took months to agree that she was habitually resident (and left her without any payments in the meantime) - she had to provide proof of addresses and jobs and bank statements going back 20 years! So how on earth can anyone who hasn't ever even been in the UK get away with claiming? I'm staggered tbh.

Can anyone explain why this country is such a push over and is this going on all over the country - God help us

And only came to light when a village cop in Bulgaria wondered why half the village were suddenly driving round in brand new 4x4s

The DWP has always been the most incompetent Dept in Whitehall (I spent all my working life dealing with them so I speak from experience).

The surrpise, such as it is, is that this is the only major fraud discovered so far.

Huh? I had to claim JSA last year and I had to attend the jobcentre every week. If you don't go you get sanctioned.

Gawd - I might even vote for the Reform party - I am so pissed with this sort of thing - Reform they say they will pick up the boat people and take them back to France. Apparently the Belgians do that, take them back on shore hence they have no boat people leaving their shores.
Goodness knows how many scams are going on - hundreds? thousands? There used to be no checks on people setting up fake companies in Companies House - I hope that's changed now.

A large amount seems to be tied up in new casinos and other businesses in Sliven - no way the UK is ever getting that back 🤯

Or... Not resident at all in the case of many of these 'claimants'.

See my second post though - proving it is hard !!

When I think of how I had to fight to get the benefits I need to live on, even though I was still making NI contributions, and am severely disabled, this makes me want to print off the article and go and personally shove it up Rishi Sunak's nose! How dare they consider sanctioning us, because we can't actually get into a government building for an assessment, because it's so badly designed, whilst paying literally £millions to people who don't even live here, and have never contributed to our country in their lives? Makes my blood boil!😡😡😡

Drop in the ocean. Benefit tourism is rife. Pretending to rent homes that are rarely lived in, children not in school for months at a time, carers not even in the same country as the people they are meant to be caring for. UC is a joke.

Many, I imagine. Very many. We truly are a joke. How on earth can you agree to give people in excess of 2k a month in benefits based on an online assessments and not even a face to face meeting?

I read that although it is known to have been 50 million it could potentially have been up to 200 million.

And they've been sentenced to between 3 and 8 years each. For 50 million.

I'll say it again. We are truly an absolute fucking joke.