The DWP will be granted new powers to lift money directly out of the pockets of benefit fraudsters, as the government vows to crackdown on welfare scams.
Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, has vowed to update her department’s 20-year-old powers branding their current investigatory capacities as ‘absurd’.
She said her inspectors we’re struggling to ‘keep pace’ with fraudsters duping the state, the Telegraph reports.
In the biggest shake-up in the DWP for over two decades, benefit fraud investigators will soon be able to recover debts of those who have overclaimed – directly from their bank accounts,
Officials have previously blamed an ‘increasing propensity’ for deceit across British society for the continued increase of scams since the pandemic.
Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, (Pictured) has vowed to update her department’s 20-year old powers branding their current investigatory capacities as ‘absurd’
The DWP will be granted new powers to lift money directly out of the pockets of benefit fraudsters, as the government vows to crackdown on welfare scams (File image)
In the department’s latest annual report and accounts, DWP officials were revealed to have assumed there will be a 5 per cent increase in fraud each year.
Some £9.7billion of taxpayers’ cash was overpaid in benefits – due to fraud and error – during 2023-24, which accounted for 3.7 per cent of total benefit expenditure.
This compared to £8.3billion and 3.6 per cent in 2022-23, as the rate of benefit overpayments continued to remain well above pre-pandemic levels.
In a letter to the Telegraph, Ms Kendall said: ‘We’re in an absurd situation where DWP’s powers have not been updated for 20 years, meaning fraudsters have new ways of taking public money, and we need to keep pace with them
‘My team are still, in 2024, sending letters to gather evidence for those suspected of welfare fraud, slowing them down to snail’s pace when they could be shutting down serious fraud cases.’
However privacy campaigners have warned that the new powers would coerce companies into ‘snoop[ing]’ on the country’s poorest people.
Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, told the Telegraph: ‘This blank cheque to force private companies to snoop and report on the country’s poorest citizens to the state is intrusive, excessive and will create a culture of fear among millions of people claiming benefits.
‘For a Labour government to introduce tough investigatory powers more typical of a counter-terror context to Britain’s welfare system is an alarming attack on privacy and yet another assault on the poor.’
Some £9.7billion of taxpayers’ cash was overpaid in benefits – due to fraud and error – during 2023-24, which accounted for 3.7 per cent of total benefit expenditure
DWP officials highlighted a ‘notable uptick in shoplifting’ as part of an ‘increasing propensity’ for deceit across British society
They also said there was evidence of ‘softened’ attitudes toward benefits fiddling in recent years
The current rules mean the only way to retrieve debt from benefit fraudsters is by taking them to court.
However the fresh legislation would mean investigators would be granted authority to take money out of peoples wages and bank accounts.
They would also be given powers to take items from an individual in order to settle debts.
Their new powers will also extend further, as they will have the ability to force private companies to hand over evidence – including airlines and ferry companies, meaning a closer eye can be kept on people’s travel.
As it stands they can only compel financial institutions, gas, electricity and water companies as well as employers to give the evidence.
This comes shortly after five Bulgarian fraudsters raked in £54million from Britain’s biggest ever benefit scam were today jailed for more than 25 years last May.
The Eastern European gang hijacked 6,000 identities to make claims for Universal Credit and used the names of children living in Bulgaria as part of the five year scam.
They set up three ‘benefit factories’ across London churning out bogus tenancy agreements, counterfeit payslips and forged letters from landlords, employers, and GPs to trick the DWP.
The group appeared to be hiding in plain sight – posting photos on social media smiling and posing behind the counter of Antonia’s Foods supermarket in Wood Green.
Two of the criminals – Galina Nikolova, 38, and Stoyan Stoyanov, 27 – pictured together in 2020 while on holiday in Turkey. Ringleader Nikolova was jailed for eight years, while Stoyanov was handed a four year prison term
Gyunesh Ali, 33, was also part of the gang. He was jailed for seven years and three months
Patritsia Paneva, 26, (left) wept as she was sentenced to three years and two months imprisonment. Tsvetka Todorova, 52, (right) was jailed for three years, but was released on licence because she had served 625 days on remand
Nikolova seen standing behind the counter of Antonia’s Foods in Wood Green, pouting at the camera alongside an unknown man
Huge stacks of cash found during the investigation
A system involving burner phones lowered down to waiting customers via a bucket pulley mechanism was also used to improve the scam’s efficiency.
The enormous haul of money gained from their ‘complex financial web’ of claims was laundered through a number of accounts, then withdrawn in cash – with £750,000 in bank notes found stuffed in suitcases at one of their homes.
The shameless gang were hauled in front of a judge at Wood Green Crown Court who said ringleader Galina Nikolova, 38, was responsible for at least £25million lost to UK taxpayers.
Gyunesh Ali, 33, even took a video of himself throwing wads of cash at unknown woman.
Ali, Nikolova, and her boyfriend Stoyan Stoyanov, 27, along with Tsvetka Todorova, 52, and Patritsia Paneva, 26, were arrested on 5 May 2021.
Last month a couple pretended to have 18 children in a £300k tax credit fraud scam were ordered to pay back just £2 between them.
‘Greedy’ HMRC worker Tracy Ashbridge applied for handouts for children that did not exist and lied about her own family having severe disabilities.
The 44-year-old, who was jailed last September, also used her position at work to alter former legitimate claimants’ details to get her hands on money.
On one occasion Ashbridge sent her husband Robert a text which read: ‘Shall we have another child?’
When he asked how they would manage, she responded with: ‘Not physically, LOL’
The mum-of-four, who earned 11k-per-year in the role she had held since 2012, used a total of nine bank accounts to receive the dishonest payouts between 2015 and 2019.
She tried to pocket a total of £434,128 and admitted six charges of fraud.
Pictured: Tracy Ashbridge, who applied for handouts for 18 children that did not exist
Pictured: Robert Ashbridge, who admitted one fraud charge but prosecutors said he also ‘encouraged’ his wife’s outrageous dishonesty.
During a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Newcastle Crown Court in July it was determined that the total amount she made through her crime was £305,952 but after an investigation revealed she had no assets she was ordered to pay back just £1.
At a further hearing in September her husband, 45, was found to have made £22,385 through his role in the scam but the court heard he also has no assets and he was ordered to pay the same sum of £1 or face seven days in jail.
The husband, who worked as a chef at a care home, admitted one fraud charge but prosecutors said he also ‘encouraged’ his wife’s outrageous dishonesty.
The couple, of Plough Road, Sunderland, could still be ordered to pay back the money they made through crime if they come into any future windfall.
The roll call of Britain’s benefit’s cheats:
Benefit fraud in Britain peaked at £8.6billion between 2021 and 2022, almost double what the levels they were at before the pandemic.
It has led to dozens of convictions over the last few years. Here, MailOnline highlights some of the crooks:
Ethel McGill, 72
McGill was labelled ‘Britain’s worst benefits cheat’ when she swindled £750,000 by hiding her father’s death and faking dementia.
Ethel McGill, pictured, pretended she had dementia as part of a long-running benefits and disability fraud
It led to the amateur actress to being jailed for five years and eight months in July 2019 before being given an extra months on her sentence in 2020 for failing to pay back £200,500 of her ill-gotten gains.
At Liverpool Crown Court, McGill admitted hiding her late father Robert Dennison’s death for 12 years so she could claim his war pension and benefits.
On one occasion she got a friend to lie under a blanket and pretend to be him at her home in Runcorn, Cheshire.
The CPS said at the time that it was one of the ‘largest ever cases of benefit fraud by a single person’.
Ali Bana Mohamed, 42
Ali Bana Mohamed, 42, was jailed in 2022 for masterminding a decade-long scam to cheat taxpayers out of at least £1.7million
Mohamed, from Hulme in Manchester, faked the identities of almost 200 children to pocket public money.
He was jailed in 2022 for masterminding a decade-long scam to cheat taxpayers out of at least £1.7million.
He enlisted relatives and friends to assist him in submitting bogus claims under about 70 different names, using stolen identities of adults along with the fake birth certificates of 188 children.
All the fraudulent claims were made on the basis that the adult had care of named children and was entitled to child benefit and tax credits.
Mohamed admitted 29 fraud offences and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison in 2022. Last year he was ordered to repay more than £2million.
Neil Filer, 46
Filer pocketed nearly £30,000 of taxpayers’ money after falsely claiming he had an array of serious medical conditions – then splurged the cash on cocaine and a lavish lifestyle.
Neil Filer (pictured) pocketed nearly £30,000 of taxpayers’ money after falsely claiming he had an array of serious medical conditions
He told the Department for Work and Pensions he had diabetes, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and right-sided weakness after a heart attack – adding that his health was so bad he could walk only short distances.
The crook insisted he needed help with washing, bathing, dressing, preparing food, reading and remembering to eat, leading to extensive claims under the Personal Independent Payments scheme.
Meanwhile, on social media he made ‘boastful’ posts about an action-packed holiday to Orlando, Florida, with pictures showing him unaccompanied on a ’90ft drop slide’ at a waterpark and on a roller-coaster.
Filer pleaded guilty to a single count of fraud, claimed £29,245 over four years and nine months. He was likened to Little Britain character Andy Pipkin, who pretended to be disabled, after he was jailed for 11 months.
Mercedes Bradley, 33
Former Virgin Atlantic air stewardess Mercedes Bradley defrauded the taxpayer for £10,000 in benefits even though she had £48,000 in a secret bank account
Former Virgin Atlantic air stewardess Bradley claimed Universal Credit benefits even though she had £48,000 in a secret bank account where she received payments from ‘ex-boyfriends’ – one of whom transferred her more than £30,000.
She admitted was of dishonestly failing to notify the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) of capital savings or investments which would affect entitlement to Universal Credit between March 26 2020 and August 28 2021.
During this time she splashed cash on a boob job, other cosmetic surgery and a Peloton exercise bike. She was sentenced to 150 hours of unpaid work in November 2022.
