I’m astonished by this news story from yesterday (although it seems the actual news came to light much earlier this year). How is it that DWP let this gang get away with claiming so much benefit for so long - five years from 2016 to 2021? Moreover, why would the DWP pay benefits to people arriving from outside the UK. Even whilst in the EU, the rules on moving to another EU country were clear: must rely on own funds or have paid work, no access to free medical care until admitted into the host countries social system (meaning contributing payments), must demonstrate they will not be dependent on host nations social care system.
That the DWP paid out was clearly not applying these rules. Worse, DWP failed to notice multiple claims by the same people. This is not a failing of letting people come to the UK for work - this is failing of the DWP in managing, applying the right rules and thoroughly checking claims.
This place is crazy, you can’t open a Bank Account without photo ID, three utility bills, birth certificate, a urine sample but johnny foreigner can defraud the benefits agency out of 54 million, you couldn’t make this up.
From the outset, I thought the new UC benefit was wide open to fraud. Just by studying the procedure, you are given insight on how to defraud the system.
Universal Credit: How to claim - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
I’m not remotely surprised. In a former life I was a broker of commercial finance, all shapes n sizes.
Two particular demographics were invariably steeped in fraud, I can’t say which in this woke age where stating facts can be construed as bigoted.
Lets just say one of these demographics began in the takeaway trade in the 80’s, then morphed into opening multiple barbers in every town (I was on about this 25 yrs ago but only now has the press caught on).
Wives were invariably on benefits despite the family owning multiple properties. These guys pioneered buy to let long before it was much of a thing.
They would often be building huge villas ‘back home’ with illicit funds.
When you’re in the commercial finance biz, these things are an open secret, everyone from lending managers to accountants know what goes on.
A common refrain is ‘well did you report them’. The answer is that we all had a duty of confidentiality , even where outrageous benefits fraud was reported, nothing happened. These closed communities are always many steps ahead of naive benefits staff.
EG if they turned up at a suspects address, a ploy would be where all inhabitants said they no speak English.
Of course white Brits also engage in fraud, but was struck me was the casual endemic nature of it inside 2 communities.
One of these had radio shows broadcasting adverts with broken English advertising all sorts of ruses such as advice on staged accidents, so brazen were they.
I have nice relatives and mates who are cosseted lefty liberals, they simply have never seen the realities of benefits and so have a naive understanding of it.
When you’re in finance, people will tell you all sorts if things others aren’t privy to. One that really irritated me was arson of their own house to thus get planning for a bigger house.
We need to get the Banking Staff into the benefits agency 
There is clearly something broken in the universal credit system and the oversight conducted by DWP that made this fraud so easy and done on such a large scale. It does not matter where the perpetrators come from. Their nationality does not make this crime better or worse. The issue is the failings in the systems, processes and checks that DWP apply - or do not apply.