This is quite interesting from the FT 2 Sept 2020 and I believe organised crime stole a lot of the money in a big way.
"The UK may have paid out up to £3.5bn in furlough money on fraudulent or mistaken claims, the tax authority disclosed on Monday.
Jim Harra, the head of HM Revenue & Customs, told MPs that between 5 and 10 per cent of money distributed through the coronavirus job retention scheme was likely to have been because of error or fraud.
Since it launched in April, the scheme has paid out £35bn and been used by 1.2m employers, enabling 9.6m jobs to be furloughed.
Speaking to the Commons public accounts committee, Mr Harra said HMRC’s focus would be on tackling abuse and the resulting fraud.
“We are not going to set out to try and fine employers who have made legitimate mistakes in compiling their claims because this was obviously something new that everyone had to get to grips with in a very difficult time.”
The tax office would be writing to employers to give them the opportunity to correct mistaken claims and repay excess amounts, he said.
Mr Harra also revealed HMRC’s hotline for reporting furlough fraud had received 8,000 calls so far. In total the tax authority was investigating 27,000 “high-risk” claims.
Richard Holden, MP for North West Durham, asked Mr Harra what was being done about employers who failed to pay money to their employees — saying several of his constituents had been furloughed but not received the government money.
Mr Harra said employers who did not pass on grants to their employees would not be entitled to the money and HMRC would be able to claw back the funds.
Due to the unprecedented nature of the initiative, the tax authority had used “best available comparisons” from other grants and benefits systems, such as tax credits, to estimate how much money had been wrongly paid. HMRC was keen to stress that the lack of directly comparable data meant the estimate of how much money had been paid out “needs to be heavily caveated and qualified”.
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Sunak's tax dilemma
The Treasury has been sensitive from the start to the potential abuse of the scheme. One reason ministers were initially reluctant to let employers furlough workers part-time (a flexibility permitted only since July) was because it would be difficult for HMRC to check they were claiming for the correct number of hours.
However, a study by researchers at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Zurich, based on a survey conducted in April and May, found that the UK's prohibition on working while furloughed was “routinely ignored”, especially by men who were able to do most work tasks from home.
Around a fifth of furloughed employees had been explicitly asked to work by their employer, but many more reported working without being told to do so. "