Five Bulgarian nationals plead guilty to falsely claiming Universal Credit over five years and storing wads of cash in ‘fraud factories’.

Germanshepherdsmum

I find it amazing that a thread about such a serious fraud on the public purse immediately attracts posts saying it’s racist and xenophobic and should be removed. I trust GN have the good sense to see that it’s nothing of the sort.

Absolutely. It seems as though the ones that disagree with this post are defending them.. No matter where they come from, they have defrauded this country, and those who may have needed this help but are unable to access it. Long jail sentences. Then deportation. If that is anti foreigner, well so be it.

What I find amazing is how such individuals get away with that amount of fraud and I echo GG's comment "there must be something seriously wrong with our benefit system" It's heartbreaking really when there are those that desperately need more funds to survive and contrasting their lack of money for essentials with how these grifters were living high on the hog courtesy of tax payers money. Having said that, yes I'm totally on board with the disgust that so many of us feel towards Michelle Mone, Dido Harding et al. It isn't either or imo, all these ill gotten gains come out of the public purse which we can ill afford.

Visgir1

My thoughts to.. How did they do that?

Yes, I was wondering that. It must have been an industrial scale operation with a thorough knowledge of all the loopholes. When they've served their prison sentences, I wonder if HMRC or the NCA would consider employing them to catch other fraudsters.

Grammaretto

It's interesting that only the right wing telegraph, sky news and the DM, are highlighting this story so far.

Therefore IMO it's a deliberate ploy to whip up xenophobia, and look how well it works!

Oh dear, foreigners involved with massive fraud from the British taxpayer. We mustn't report on it, as it may offend the left. Who don't seem have the same concerns about people stealing from the British taxpayer.

Well, and the BBC Grammaretto
Some would say it's right-wing
Others argue it has a left-wing bias

So it must be somewhere in between.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68774242

It was only £53.9 million, Urmstongran, you can heave a sigh of relief.

Callistemon21

Grammaretto

It's interesting that only the right wing telegraph, sky news and the DM, are highlighting this story so far.

Therefore IMO it's a deliberate ploy to whip up xenophobia, and look how well it works!

Let's applaud them for their ingenuity, shall we?

I'm not applauding them, but I am amazed by it.

I was sickened when I saw this on the news channel this morning Urmstongran.

The amount stolen is astronomical, how on earth, regardless of how organised they were, were they able to do get away with this for so long especially as you say, we hear so often about how difficult is for the entitled to get these benefits.

The perpetrators are Bulgarian, it isn't racist to say so Urmstongran is simply sating a fact or are we to accuse the BBC and other news outlets who have covered this story of being racist too?

Freya5

Grammaretto

It's interesting that only the right wing telegraph, sky news and the DM, are highlighting this story so far.

Therefore IMO it's a deliberate ploy to whip up xenophobia, and look how well it works!

Oh dear, foreigners involved with massive fraud from the British taxpayer. We mustn't report on it, as it may offend the left. Who don't seem have the same concerns about people stealing from the British taxpayer.

Don't be silly!

Having said that, yes I'm totally on board with the disgust that so many of us feel towards Michelle Mone, Dido Harding et al. It isn't either or imo, all these ill gotten gains come out of the public purse which we can ill afford

Absolutely, Terribull

As I said - how many medical staff would all this wasted money fund?
Potholes?

growstuff

Freya5

Grammaretto

It's interesting that only the right wing telegraph, sky news and the DM, are highlighting this story so far.

Therefore IMO it's a deliberate ploy to whip up xenophobia, and look how well it works!

Oh dear, foreigners involved with massive fraud from the British taxpayer. We mustn't report on it, as it may offend the left. Who don't seem have the same concerns about people stealing from the British taxpayer.

Don't be silly!

Obviously not silly, judging by some of the earlier posts on the thread which were silly.

Message deleted by Gransnet for repeating a deleted post. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

Message deleted by Gransnet for repeating a deleted post. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

Callistemon21

growstuff

Freya5

Grammaretto

It's interesting that only the right wing telegraph, sky news and the DM, are highlighting this story so far.

Therefore IMO it's a deliberate ploy to whip up xenophobia, and look how well it works!

Oh dear, foreigners involved with massive fraud from the British taxpayer. We mustn't report on it, as it may offend the left. Who don't seem have the same concerns about people stealing from the British taxpayer.

Don't be silly!

Obviously not silly, judging by some of the earlier posts on the thread which were silly.

Sorry, but suggesting that it shouldn't be reported is silly.

I am coming to the conclusion that it is now politically incorrect to state the bleedin’ obvious.

These were Bulgarian nationals who deliberately set out to defraud the U.K. Government, why in earth should we pussyfoot around this fact

Posting that others should be in jail is pure whataboutery

Well it's funny isn't it. A system organised by a bunch of incompetents who splurged money on contracts for their mates, which on a daily basis punishes and demonises those struggling to feed their families (I, Daniel Blake), falls victim to a bunch of organised fraudsters. Perhaps if the system focussed more on looking for organised crime and less on individuals who are struggling these people would have been stopped before they got so much cash.

Sorry, but suggesting that it shouldn't be reported is silly.

Could you explain why please?

Five members of an organised gang have been convicted of what has been described by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) as the largest case of benefit fraud in England and Wales.

The gang of three women and two men - all Bulgarian - made thousands of fraudulent claims for Universal Credit over a four and a half year period.

BBC News
7 hours ago

I didn't say we must not report it.
Neither am I defending a massive fraud.
I am just observing that the rt wing press, who reflect their readers, seem to think that the most important fact about the fraudsters is that they are not British.
Please don't be rude to me without reading what I say.

I wonder how they do it? Maybe our systems and arrangements here are too lax. Not so long ago, living as a foreigner abroad, I had to go face to face to government offices with forms copied in triplicate before we received any benefits or grants. Everything had to be minutely checked and rubber stamped, and then there were follow up appointments.
What were they using the money for? That's £10 million each.

I too was horrified when I read this story, highlighting as it does just how easy it is to defraud our benefits system.
Presumably these criminals would have done their research, looking into how systems operate in various European countries and decided (correctly as it turns out) that the UK was the one to target.

It just goes on and on doesn’t it?

We have already heard about how foreign criminals who have slipped in here illegally, manage to escape deportation by fooling gullible vicars that they have converted to Christianity.

Grammaretto

I didn't say we must not report it.
Neither am I defending a massive fraud.
I am just observing that the rt wing press, who reflect their readers, seem to think that the most important fact about the fraudsters is that they are not British.
Please don't be rude to me without reading what I say.

BBC
ITV
SKY
Along with all major newspapers are reporting this, trying to turn it into right wing bias is just ridiculous.

growstuff

Freya5

Grammaretto

It's interesting that only the right wing telegraph, sky news and the DM, are highlighting this story so far.

Therefore IMO it's a deliberate ploy to whip up xenophobia, and look how well it works!

Oh dear, foreigners involved with massive fraud from the British taxpayer. We mustn't report on it, as it may offend the left. Who don't seem have the same concerns about people stealing from the British taxpayer.

Don't be silly!

Thank you for the insult.

It doesn't matter who did it, it's a massive sign that the system is inadequate and resources need to go into examining organised crime and not into sanctioning individual claimants. It's the system that needs changing.

I feel that the nationality of the fraudsters is very relevant. It's one thing for our own citizens to commit such crimes, but when we have criminals from all over the world exploiting us then you realise what a soft touch and how vulnerable we are.

It's not racist to want to know who these people are running benefit fraud, grooming gangs, drug gangs, slavery and all the other terrible crimes we see nowadays.

What concerns me is how many other frauds like this have not been uncovered.

zakouma66

All foreigners are baddies. There you go.

This is way too simplistic. Every nation is made up of the good and the bad and everything in between. It's a fact that some countries have had to live under harsh, harsh regimes, Albania would certainly be one, they had an awful time under Enva Hoxha, not so long ago. Bulgaria and Romania, poor agrarian, oppressive societies, I may be wrong, but wasn't Bulgaria deemed to be too corrupt to join the EU only a short while ago, but that kind of got waived. These were and possibly still are societies where people had to live on their wits to survive, I imagine we'd be the same here if we'd been ruled by some power mad autocrat (don't anybody say we are, because as useless as our government is, we're still a democracy) It's far more nuanced, it's not a case of blanketing all foreigners are bad. Some foreign nationals have however lived in societies that are in thrall to gang culture, war lords, where possibly extortion and fraud have evolved as a way of life, sometimes those ills get exported abroad. Then of course we have our own corrupt elite operating quite openly in the most reprehensible manner. Having said all that, I'm sure as a nation we benefit also from importing the very best foreign nationals who have settled here have brought to our country.