Citizens' money fraud: Leverkusen clan illegally collects 170,000 euros!

Citizens' money fraud: Leverkusen clan illegally collects 170,000 euros!

A questionable fraud market is flourishing in North Rhine-Westphalia. A current investigation shows that members of an extended family in Leverkusen falsified the job center for years with an unjustified claim to citizen's money and stole almost 170,000 euros. A clan couple who said they had no income or assets were finally exposed when the husband was discovered to be in possession of cars, jewelry and cash. While he had to serve a four-year prison sentence, his wife was acquitted because she could not be proven to have any knowledge of the machinations. This is just part of a much larger problem like that Cologne City Gazette reported.

The situation is alarming. Federal Labor Minister Bärbel Bas has targeted the “mafia structures” in the abuse of social benefits. In 2024, an impressive 43,699 suspected cases of citizen's money fraud were reported nationwide. The German family funds examined over 140,000 suspected cases of unlawful child benefit payments, which led to more than 100,000 tax investigations. Particularly worrying are reports of a notable increase in fraud, often perpetrated by organized criminal structures from southern and eastern Europe, with migrants being targeted to benefit from social benefits. Frank Böttcher, head of the Duisburg job center, highlights that fraudsters also use false employment records and rental agreements to disguise their access to social support.

Scams at a glance

The tricks that fraudsters use are varied. Among other things, false information about income and assets is provided, and additional income from undeclared work often goes undetected. In addition, criminal networks use fictitious employment to illegally apply for citizen benefits. Sometimes apartments are rented in the name of the recipient while they are actually living abroad. Even when it comes to specifying the number of children in a community of need, tricks are often used in order to maximize social benefits. It is becoming increasingly clear that such fraud strategies are not limited to individual cases, but often take place in organized networks that systematically evade social benefits, like this Citizens' money website determines.

Despite the worrying developments, the current state of combating fraud remains inadequate. Many job centers have to counteract this with budget cuts that affect their resources for integration into work and personnel recruitment. This overload hinders the effective detection of fraud cases and makes it easy for criminal structures to operate unmolested. The politically influenced system unnecessarily perpetuates these shortages and thus weakens the integrity of social services intended for people in need.

It is now clear that combating social security fraud requires more than just sporadic controls. A comprehensive reform of systems and regulations is necessary to ensure that citizens' money and other social benefits actually benefit those for whom they are intended.