Migrants from the EU are defrauding Britain of millions

On 1 February 2014, Tim Ross reported thus in The Telegraph:

“Migrants from the European Union are defrauding Britain of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money… according to a secret government dossier…

In the most extreme cases, criminal gangs have trafficked people into Britain and forced them to beg on the streets and open bank accounts in order to claim welfare, before withdrawing the money and leaving them destitute…

The dossier was due to have been published at the height of last week’s row in Parliament over the government’s immigration reforms. However, publication was delayed, which meant that the details could not be discussed during Thursday’s Commons debate… Conservative MPs, already furious at No 10’s handling of the Immigration Bill, accused the government of trying to suppress crucial evidence…

The report details the four major routes by which European migrants and others abuse the ‘free movement’ rights given to EU citizens. These are sham marriages, proxy marriages. benefit fraud, and fraudulent documents.

Registrars have raised concerns about 1,891 suspected sham marriages in 2012, up from 934 in 2010. These involve people applying to live in the UK as the spouse of a British citizen or a resident of another EU country. This is now the ‘route of choice’ for migrants trying to gain access to Britain fraudulently. Amid evidence that such fraudulent marriages are linked to criminal gangs, there are 23 current police investigations under way or being planned into sham marriage rings in the North West of England alone.

One vicar in London carried out nearly 250 sham marriages between non-EU and EU nationals, earning more than £30,000 from the fees he charged… In a survey of 200 EU residence card applications during one week in October last year, 16 per cent of all marriage certificates submitted in supporting evidence were from proxy marriages. A separate investigation uncovered a criminal network using counterfeit and stolen ID cards and proxy marriage certificates in attempts to enter Britain.

In one case, more than 1,000 children were trafficked by a Romanian gang into Britain and forced to steal, engage in ‘organised begging’ and commit benefit fraud. The case, which gave rise to the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Golf, included a £2.9 million benefit fraud scam in which false claims for British benefits were orchestrated by a Romanian gang.

Other cases saw 230 Polish drug addicts and people with mental health problems ‘lured’ to Britain and ‘tricked’ into opening bank accounts into which fraudulently claimed benefits were paid.

The report concludes: 'It is clear that criminal gangs exploit the free movement rights of EU citizens in order to facilitate significant fraud against the UK benefits system'...

The Home Office dossier states that 73 per cent of the 1,770 fraudulent documents seized in 2009 were from the EU or the EEA (European Economic Area). By 2012, this had risen to 83 per cent of the 1,652 false papers detected.”

Just two of those involved in the ‘250 sham marriages’ (more than 300 actually ) scam had been deported by 1 April 2012.

Brian Shipsides, the Church of England vicar who presided over the 300 marriages,was jailed for four-and-a-half years for conspiracy to facilitate unlawful immigration.

His co-conspirator, illegal immigrant ‘fixer’ Amudalat Ladipo, was jailed for three on the same charge. The weddings were largely between Nigerians (Ladipo is Nigerian) and EU citizens, a majority involving a Portuguese or Dutch national.

Described in court as a ‘prolific and resourceful liar’, Ladipo was involved in fixing marriages at other churches across the UK.

Shipsides, who deliberately omitted to read wedding banns and avoided submitting records about the number of marriages being conducted at All Saints Church in Forest Gate, was not moved to do what he did by a sense of misguided PC altruism towards the disadvantaged alien. The main motivation of this latter day Holy Joe was greed. Shipsides wanted the dosh so he could travel the world.



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