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

My first thought was that to be able to pull this off on such a huge scale then they had to have help from within ? I can't help thinking there have been a few blind eyes turned !

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!

No that’s not so, it’s everywhere, it’s even on uTube if you’d care to take a look.

Xenophobia it is not.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Urms Thank you for putting your head above the parapet!
I was going to start the same discussion but couldn’t face the inevitable flack.

MaizieD Grow up!

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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!

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?

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.

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.