Four people have been arrested as part of an investigation into a gang that stole at least £3m in benefits.
The suspects were detained following dawn raids at four addresses across south London and Berkshire, according to the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP).
The raids were carried out as part of Operation Mellow, an investigation into an organised crime group alleged to have used hundreds of hijacked identities to claim, falsely, Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payments worth at least £3m.
Police seized an estimated £150,000 worth of items and cash at one of the addresses.
The suspects were taken into custody and interviewed under caution by DWP investigators. They have been released on bail pending further investigations.
D’ye think some local Somalis have been calling cousins in Minneapolis?
I think their identities will emerge only under severe duress.
Getting this ready!
And…
Hmm, let’s see, £150,000 divided by £6587.50 is 22 immigrants, so the rest must have been Julia’s “people of no appearance” and so the Plods didn’t spot them…
You shouldn’t need AI to spot that right from the start. It’s just a simple database query to check how many people are claiming at an address each time someone registers for a benefit.
And not forgetting we have every dress on a database so they shouldn’t be able to make up addresses.
Plenty of aliases in there. My MiL was pestered regularly by the TV licence people for that reason. I even went in to bat with her MP on the subject. Crapita disclaimed all responsibility, natch…
“And not forgetting we have every dress on a database so they shouldn’t be able to make up addresses.”
Ha. Many years ago, my first post-education job, I was auditing a local council, and asked them how many council houses they had (yes, it was that long ago).
They had three different systems (rent, maintenance and legal, from memory), each of which gave a different number.
I would be surprised if things had improved.
I remember us overhauling the electoral roll database system just after 2000, and removing about 40,000 ghosts. We went from 430,000 electors to 380,000 overnight.
Must have been a very big parish church …
Maybe you mean the electoral register?
To the downvoter there, you do realise this is Pendant City, right?
While deploring organised benefit fraud in the UK by various ethnicities the amounts involved are a mere pinprick compared to the millions (billions) made freely available with minimal if any scrutiny to their US counterparts particularly but not exclusively in Minnesota where political leaders allegedly contributed towards the problem by their slavish addiction to the minority vote. And the biggest minority in play was……………
Oh, John, don’t you know EVERYTHING’S bigger in the USA?
But of course.
Meanwhile over here during the course of my voluntary work I hear the most disturbing claims about the burgeoning use of translators in the nhs and taxis/hire cars in the education sectors. The hydra has many heads but they’re all taxpayer funded.
When my brother (R.I.P) was being treated in hospital in Spain, the hospital never provided a translator, it was up to him to arrange someone.
so far the figures are lower –
South London and Berkshire? Probably the County set stealing from the poor while simultaneously torturing the wildlife. As you do. Nothing to do with the virtuous ethnics…
Police seized an estimated £150,000 worth of items and cash at one of the addresses.
I wonder how many postal votes have been cast from this address.
No, they stole at least £3m.
Journalists. Sigh.
They have been released on bail pending further investigations.
And unfortunately can no longer be found
So they only recovered 2.5% of the stolen money. I would be carefully checking the finances of whoever fronted them the bail money. Of course, they too are probably from Longgonistan.
But, but, we keep being told benefit fraud barely exists, and that trying to reduce it is just neoliberal oppression.
Surely the Guardian hasn’t been lying to us all these years?
Chump change for Somalians.