What monsters. I can’t believe they would use so many fake children like that.
And yet Covid loan Fraud won’t be looked at. These people barely dent the scams the government have said they won’t deal with.
Whilst this is bad, are people really going to get outraged at 1.7 million? The fact they got caught is more impressive. Yet I’m still waiting for even an attempt at the 5 BILLION in furlough to be recovered.
The article makes it clear that this was a *tax and benefits* fraud scheme over a period of nine years with the investigation being started by HMRC who noticed the same phone number being used to manage the claims. HMRC informed the DWP of this which motivated the DWP to investigate. Given that the DWP has 13 investigators for every sing HMRC investigator, all this really means that is that HMRC worked out how to get Tax Fraud investigated. Everything else is about pretending “benefit fraud” is the real problem.
The main offender was already serving 16 years for drugs and immigration offences while two other offenders had previous fraud convictions and suspended sentences hanging over them at the time of the offences. Which suggests that benefits were simply the “next scam” rather than “normal for claimants”.
In total £1,766,594.87 was paid out comprising £345,642.80 in child benefit payments and £1,420,952.07 in tax credit payments over a period of nine years. Which amounts to about £20 a week per faked child. Which makes the prosecution a whole lot less impressive. Yes, prosecuting fraud is expected and good thing but this is not so much a successful prosecution as a successful spinning of long term petty crime from known criminals.
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What monsters. I can’t believe they would use so many fake children like that.
And yet Covid loan Fraud won’t be looked at. These people barely dent the scams the government have said they won’t deal with.
Whilst this is bad, are people really going to get outraged at 1.7 million? The fact they got caught is more impressive. Yet I’m still waiting for even an attempt at the 5 BILLION in furlough to be recovered.
The article makes it clear that this was a *tax and benefits* fraud scheme over a period of nine years with the investigation being started by HMRC who noticed the same phone number being used to manage the claims. HMRC informed the DWP of this which motivated the DWP to investigate. Given that the DWP has 13 investigators for every sing HMRC investigator, all this really means that is that HMRC worked out how to get Tax Fraud investigated. Everything else is about pretending “benefit fraud” is the real problem.
The main offender was already serving 16 years for drugs and immigration offences while two other offenders had previous fraud convictions and suspended sentences hanging over them at the time of the offences. Which suggests that benefits were simply the “next scam” rather than “normal for claimants”.
In total £1,766,594.87 was paid out comprising £345,642.80 in child benefit payments and £1,420,952.07 in tax credit payments over a period of nine years. Which amounts to about £20 a week per faked child. Which makes the prosecution a whole lot less impressive. Yes, prosecuting fraud is expected and good thing but this is not so much a successful prosecution as a successful spinning of long term petty crime from known criminals.