£1m in child benefits & tax credits paid to just 3 addresses
Discussion
1 - 3 houses rented out to live in by fraudsters.
2 - Migrants were promised work by these fraudsters and flown in from the Czech Republic and Slovakia and housed in one of these properties.
3 - Migrants taken to local job centre which allowed them to get an NI number and card.
3 - Migrants taken to local HMRC office to set up child benefit and tax credit payments.
4 - Migrants then told 'sorry we don't actually have any jobs for you' and flown back to their home nation whilst the fraudsters continue to claim these benefits.
And it took HMRC 2 years to figure out that so many child benefit/tax credit claims going to just 3 addresses might be dodgy. And to make matters worse:
2 - Migrants were promised work by these fraudsters and flown in from the Czech Republic and Slovakia and housed in one of these properties.
3 - Migrants taken to local job centre which allowed them to get an NI number and card.
3 - Migrants taken to local HMRC office to set up child benefit and tax credit payments.
4 - Migrants then told 'sorry we don't actually have any jobs for you' and flown back to their home nation whilst the fraudsters continue to claim these benefits.
And it took HMRC 2 years to figure out that so many child benefit/tax credit claims going to just 3 addresses might be dodgy. And to make matters worse:
Telegraph said:
HMRC admits that it has no idea whether other similar gangs are operating in the UK. If they are doing so, they have largely gone undetected with none others prosecuted by HMRC this year.
Telegraph said:
Magdalena Ferkova smiles for the camera as she poses besides a black, £40,000 BMW. Her sister Iveta sits behind the wheel while a man in the passenger seat flicks a v-sign to the photographer.
It is an expensive car for sisters from the Czech Republic who, to outsiders, earned a living working in a factory.
But their day jobs were a cover for their real work, defrauding the British government in a £1 million benefits scam that earned them and their gang as much as £33,000 a week.
Last week, Iveta and Magdalena Ferkova and three members of their gang were convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud after a five-day trial at Nottingham Crown Court.
Magdalena, 33, disappeared half way through the trial and was found guilty in her absence; a warrant has been issued for her arrest.
Magdalena’s boyfriend Julius Ziga, 34, who led the gang with her, was convicted along with the sisters’ aunt, Alena Lackova, and her husband, Jan Lacko, both 39. They are all now awaiting sentence.
Today The Sunday Telegraph can piece together the full story of how the gang pulled off the scam over more than two years. It was a fraud that took advantage of Britain’s child tax credit and child benefit system – and which is available to European Union as well as British citizens. It is so simple, you might say, that a child could carry it out.
Ziga and Magdalena Ferkova hit upon the fraud after moving to Nottingham from their native Czech Republic in 2007.
The couple lived in a modest, two-bedroom semi-detached house in a run-down street in St Anns, an impoverished suburb of the city.
The house was cheap – rent was about £500 a month – but it also had the advantage of being close to East Midlands airport, which operates four flights a day on budget airlines to Ruzyne International Airport in Prague.
The pair drafted in other family members to assist. In the gang Iveta Ferkova, 32, rented her own house and Lacko and Lackova lived nearby in a home opposite the local police station.
The scam began with a promise to find low-paid jobs in Britain for unemployed people back in the Czech Republic and neighbouring Slovakia. Through word of mouth and family contacts, arrangements were put in place to bring the migrants to the UK by either car or plane, luring them with the promise of work.
When the migrants arrived in the UK, the gang put them up in one of their three houses.
Neighbours said they were not suspicious but simply thought the Ferkovas had a large and loving family who frequently visited. “There were always lots of people coming and going but I just presumed they had a big family,” one neighbour said.
Once in the country, the gang took the new arrivals first to the local Jobcentre for an interview, where they produced either an identity card, birth certificate or driving licence, necessary for obtaining a National Insurance number. The next step was to set up bank accounts, controlled by the gang, for each of the visitors.
They would then accompany the migrants to the local HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) tax office in Nottingham where the gang, posing as interpreters, helped them submit false claims for child tax credits and child benefits.
Child tax credits are paid to anyone caring for a child under the age of 16 and who is either unemployed or working up to 25 hours a week. Most of the migrants did not actually have children.
The scam was almost complete. The migrants were then informed by the gang that there was no work available.
They were taken back to the airport, put on a plane and sent home. The gang, however, kept claiming the benefits and Ziga and the Ferkovas enjoyed the rewards of their scam.
In total, they set up at least 124 such bank accounts to receive cash from 77 false tax credit claims. They wrote down a list of cash card pin numbers and devised a diary to organise their days for drawing out money from certain accounts.
Between January 2008 and April 2010, when they were finally caught, they had stolen more than £535,000.
At times they had “conned their way into withdrawing” as much as £33,000 just in one week. A further £500,000 was due to be paid out before their arrest. According to HMRC, the gang spent their money on expensive cars and gambling in casinos around the country.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/10375380/The-33000-a-week-benefit-scam-so-easy-a-child-could-do-it.htmlIt is an expensive car for sisters from the Czech Republic who, to outsiders, earned a living working in a factory.
But their day jobs were a cover for their real work, defrauding the British government in a £1 million benefits scam that earned them and their gang as much as £33,000 a week.
Last week, Iveta and Magdalena Ferkova and three members of their gang were convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud after a five-day trial at Nottingham Crown Court.
Magdalena, 33, disappeared half way through the trial and was found guilty in her absence; a warrant has been issued for her arrest.
Magdalena’s boyfriend Julius Ziga, 34, who led the gang with her, was convicted along with the sisters’ aunt, Alena Lackova, and her husband, Jan Lacko, both 39. They are all now awaiting sentence.
Today The Sunday Telegraph can piece together the full story of how the gang pulled off the scam over more than two years. It was a fraud that took advantage of Britain’s child tax credit and child benefit system – and which is available to European Union as well as British citizens. It is so simple, you might say, that a child could carry it out.
Ziga and Magdalena Ferkova hit upon the fraud after moving to Nottingham from their native Czech Republic in 2007.
The couple lived in a modest, two-bedroom semi-detached house in a run-down street in St Anns, an impoverished suburb of the city.
The house was cheap – rent was about £500 a month – but it also had the advantage of being close to East Midlands airport, which operates four flights a day on budget airlines to Ruzyne International Airport in Prague.
The pair drafted in other family members to assist. In the gang Iveta Ferkova, 32, rented her own house and Lacko and Lackova lived nearby in a home opposite the local police station.
The scam began with a promise to find low-paid jobs in Britain for unemployed people back in the Czech Republic and neighbouring Slovakia. Through word of mouth and family contacts, arrangements were put in place to bring the migrants to the UK by either car or plane, luring them with the promise of work.
When the migrants arrived in the UK, the gang put them up in one of their three houses.
Neighbours said they were not suspicious but simply thought the Ferkovas had a large and loving family who frequently visited. “There were always lots of people coming and going but I just presumed they had a big family,” one neighbour said.
Once in the country, the gang took the new arrivals first to the local Jobcentre for an interview, where they produced either an identity card, birth certificate or driving licence, necessary for obtaining a National Insurance number. The next step was to set up bank accounts, controlled by the gang, for each of the visitors.
They would then accompany the migrants to the local HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) tax office in Nottingham where the gang, posing as interpreters, helped them submit false claims for child tax credits and child benefits.
Child tax credits are paid to anyone caring for a child under the age of 16 and who is either unemployed or working up to 25 hours a week. Most of the migrants did not actually have children.
The scam was almost complete. The migrants were then informed by the gang that there was no work available.
They were taken back to the airport, put on a plane and sent home. The gang, however, kept claiming the benefits and Ziga and the Ferkovas enjoyed the rewards of their scam.
In total, they set up at least 124 such bank accounts to receive cash from 77 false tax credit claims. They wrote down a list of cash card pin numbers and devised a diary to organise their days for drawing out money from certain accounts.
Between January 2008 and April 2010, when they were finally caught, they had stolen more than £535,000.
At times they had “conned their way into withdrawing” as much as £33,000 just in one week. A further £500,000 was due to be paid out before their arrest. According to HMRC, the gang spent their money on expensive cars and gambling in casinos around the country.
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