Former UK-Based Zimbabwean Cheats UK Govt £39,000 In Benefits, Living In Zim, Renting Out UK House
A Zimbabwean cheat who left the United Kingdom to live in Zimbabwe pocketed £39,000 in benefits from UK taxpayers while secretly collecting rent from a UK property, it has emerged.
The fraud is one of the most brazen cases highlighted by the UK Treasury as it launches a major crackdown on benefits cheats.
How the scheme works
The scam is known as a double fraud and it exploits two of the UK welfare system’s core rules.
To claim Universal Credit, a person must be living in the UK, be habitually resident and be physically present in the country. The law says if you leave the UK for more than four weeks you must inform the Department for Work and Pensions and your claim will be closed. The man did not declare that he had left.
At the same time, claimants must declare all income and all property. If you own a second property that is not your main home, its value counts as capital and anything over £16,000 disqualifies you from benefits. Any rental income must also be declared and is deducted pound-for-pound from your claim.
He broke both rules. He continued to claim full benefits as if he was a low-income person living in the UK with no assets, while living in Zimbabwe and pocketing private rent from his tenants in the UK. The £39,000 was not stolen at once – it was monthly payments of around £1,200 made up of standard allowance and housing support over more than two-and-a-half years before data matching caught him.
The case has now been used by Chancellor John Healey to justify a £1.4 billion fraud blitz.
According to the Daily Mail, Healey is planning to send 2,000 anti-fraud experts into Jobcentres in a bid to claw back the money. The officials will team up with Work Coaches to spot suspicious Universal Credit claims early.
The Chancellor is expected to announce at the Budget that tougher checks on claims abroad will be introduced, targeting fraudsters who fail to report that they have left the country in order to keep payments flowing. New data-driven checks will identify potential breaches of benefit travel rules by matching welfare records against Home Office exit data, Land Registry records and bank accounts.
A Treasury spokesman said: “We need to make the most of every pound of taxpayers’ money and cut fraud to ensure the welfare system is fair and sustainable. At the Budget, we’re rooting out those who abuse the welfare system, while protecting those who need it most.”
The crackdown comes as Britain’s benefits bill – currently estimated at around £160 billion – is set to soar by £5.5 billion next year, significantly more than forecast. An analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found the rise is as much as £2.2 billion more than the Treasury has budgeted for.
Much of the increase is linked to inflation. Many benefits increase every April in line with the Consumer Prices Index from the previous September. Official figures showed inflation for September was 3.5 per cent, more than the OBR forecast of 2.3 per cent.
Another example of fraud flagged in the same report involved a Universal Credit claimant from the Midlands who submitted an application for support with childcare costs but listed their address as a derelict building. – FV
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