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Three years ago, the Bremerhaven authorities uncovered a large-scale scheme for welfare fraud. Today the trial begins: a 59-year-old man is accused of embezzlement of more than 6 million euros. The prosecution believes that it misled the social security fund in a total of 724 cases, using Bulgarian immigrants for these frauds. The accused was the president of two non-profit companies, which, in violation of the law, had made the payment of social benefits to Bulgarian citizens.
False employment contracts
To this end, in the period from 2013 to 2016, Bulgarians received partially false employment contracts. The defendants also helped them demonstrate to the social authorities that they were autonomous. The Bremerhaven Jobcenter paid benefits in a total of 691 cases and refused payments in 33 cases.
The first suspicions arise when the social authorities discover that the Bulgarian migrants present themselves to the Labor Office with the same assistants and falsified documents. Little by little, the law enforcement authorities turned their attention to an “Agency for Employment and Integration” (“Agentur für Beschäftigung und Integration”) and the so-called “Gesellschaft für Familie und Gender Mainstreaming”. It was the president of these two organizations who sat on the bench today.
A special committee of the Bremen Parliament is also dealing with the case. As an independent federal state (the smallest in Germany), Bremen and Bremerhaven have their own parliament and representation in the Bundesrat. The parliamentary commission is now clarifying how this huge alleged fraud came about. So far, the findings say that this is a fully developed system that has been maintained with very high criminal energy. For the payment of immigrants from Bulgaria, false employment contracts and false invoices were delivered.
Bulgarians: victims and perpetrators
For more than a year, the parliamentary commission has questioned more than 60 witnesses and analyzed a large number of documents. Two years ago, he described the migrants from Bulgaria as “victims and perpetrators”. Most of them did not know German, did not know or understand the German legal system.
Today, the trial began with a 92-page reading of the indictment. For now, the process is expected to continue until at least June 2021.
Germany
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