Five members of a gang that falsely claimed more than £53 million in Universal Credit in Britain's largest benefit fraud have been jailed for more than 25 years. The Eastern European gang hijacked 6,000 different identities - including the names of Bulgarian children - to make their false claims. The criminals set up three separate 'benefit factories' across London, where they created fake tenancy agreements and payslips.
The DWP would sometimes ask for pictures of people outside properties with the front door open to prove they lived there - Photoshop was used in mocked up images. Ali and Nikolova were the main architects of the fraud. The judge said that under current laws the maximum sentence he could give them was 10 years and "it is only the rarest of circumstances that this would be followed".