Five members of a benefit fraud gang who falsely claimed £50m in Universal Credit have been brought down in the largest prosecution of its type in English legal history. The gang made thousands of false claims for Universal Credit using either real people or hijacked identities and backed them up with an array of forged documents, including counterfeit payslips and fake GP letters.
As part of the investigation, police identified three 'benefit factories' in London where repeated false claims for benefits originated from. During raids, police also found 'claim packs' containing forged and false documents, as well as bundles of cash stuffed in shopping bags and suitcases, a luxury car, and designer goods including watches, jackets, and glasses. Bulgarian nationals Galina Nikolova, 38, Stoyan Stoyanov, 27, Tsvetka Todorova, 52, Gyunesh Ali, 33, and Patritsia Paneva, 26, have now pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering-related offences. Ben Reid, Specialist Prosecutor for the CPS, described it as a 'complex and challenging case' which required 'close and effective work' between UK authorities and international partners in Bulgaria and the European Union crime agency, Eurojust. 'This case is the largest benefit fraud prosecution ever brought to the courts in England and Wales,' he said. 'For a number of years, these defendants conspired to commit industrial-scale fraud against the Universal Credit system, costing the taxpayer more than £50