Some Brits living in LOS need to watch their backs

[Bazle 1,485]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13...o=feeds-newsxml

 

Crackdown on 'abroad fraud' benefit cheats could save taxpayers £66millionBy Tim Shipman

Last updated at 7:40 AM on 27th December 2010

 

Ministers have unleashed a new crackdown on benefit fraud to stamp out cheats who claim state handouts while living abroad.

 

Welfare reform minister Lord Freud warned yesterday that taxpayers lost £66million last year from fraudsters living overseas.

 

Fraud officials at the Department for Work and Pensions have joined forces with overseas counterparts to target British people in countries where the most ‘abroad fraud’ is carried out.

 

Benefit fraud hotspots include Spain, Portugal and the U.S., but cases have also been detected in countries such as Thailand and Sweden.

 

The most common and costly scams include people failing to tell officials they have moved abroad, as well as fraudsters who continue to claim benefits for people who have died.

 

That allows some cheats to pocket thousands of pounds in income support, pension payments and housing benefit.

 

Fraudsters have also claimed cash while working overseas, have exaggerated disabilities or have failed to report assets, including savings, property and even yachts.

 

The crackdown will also see DWP experts team up with anti-fraud staff in British banks and staff at the Land Registry, which keeps a record of property ownership, to hunt down the cheats who go on claiming once they move abroad.

 

And the Government will encourage honest benefit claimants to shop the cheats to a DWP hotline.

 

Lord Freud said: ‘Abroad fraud cost the taxpayer around £66million last year. This money should be going to the people who need it most and not lining the pockets of criminals sunning themselves overseas.

 

‘We are determined to stop benefit thieves stealing from the British taxpayer and recently launched our hotline in Portugal to make it even easier to report benefit crime.’

Angela Walker, formerly of Birmingham, recently pleaded guilty to benefit fraud after being reported through a hotline in Spain, where she now lives in Granada.

 

She had claimed more than £10,000 of income support and child tax credits since 2006, despite living with a partner in Spain. Last month she was ordered by a court to repay the money she had taken and pay £100 in costs.

 

She was also given a 12-month Community Order and will have to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work.

 

The crackdown comes as the DWP tries to save money to pay for the Government’s ambitious plans to introduce a universal benefit system and a programme to make people take work or risk losing their state handouts.

 

That system will replace the complex array of out-of-work payments with a single payment which will ensure that someone in work is always better off.

 

To finance the £3billion start-up costs of the system, Lord Freud has already announced plans to strip benefits for life from people involved in criminal gangs which engage in systematic benefit fraud.

[jacko 8,813]

Jeez, there will be a few bars around Bua Khao suffer.

[bratpack 91]

Jeez, there will be a few bars around Bua Khao suffer.

 

 

LK is fucked but at least the drug selling farangs are being rounded up

[thedodger 2]

Nice to hear hope they stop all the Poles and other East Europeans who claim benefit and fly home every fortnight.

[Obsession 571]

The BBC mentioned Pakistan and Bangladesh as being main targets. No mention of los.