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Abuse of social provisions often has a significant societal impact and goes beyond just the direct financial damage to the government. It undermines the support for social provisions and affects the sense of justice. Fraudsters continuously look for weaknesses in regulations or systems to gain financial or economic advantage. Benefit fraud is increasingly taking place at an organized level. Typically, this involves fraudulent collaboration between employers and employees. This may include the use of sham constructions, fictitious employment relationships, bankruptcy fraud, intermediaries, and frontmen ('straw men').
A recent example of organized benefit fraud that has caused a stir is the large-scale fraud by Polish labour migrants. Partly due to this affair, the Department of Enforcement and Data Exchange of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment (SZW) aims to expand its knowledge in the area of organized fraud. For this reason, SZW has asked Dialogic to conduct research into patterns of organized fraud (and its combat) in four domains outside social benefits. This is a follow-up to our previous research for WODC on the Dark Number in Crime ('Groping in the dark'). Initially, we are focusing on bankruptcy fraud, tax fraud, healthcare fraud, and environmental fraud. The results of the research are expected to be available by the end of September 2019.
Want to know more? Contact Robbin te Velde.