Overview
- The Department for Work and Pensions says it is reviewing the decision to award Universal Credit to Tsvetka Todorova after reports she resumed payments on December 30.
- Todorova, released from a three-year sentence, told media she receives about £200 a month and that her husband gets roughly £1,300, and she says she will fight removal from the UK.
- The Daily Mail reports the department has said she will have to repay any benefits received, while an official statement referenced loss-of-benefit sanctions for those convicted of fraud without commenting on her case.
- Most members of the gang are out of prison on immigration bail, and deportations are on hold until confiscation hearings are completed.
- Prosecutors say about £1 million has been recovered so far from a scheme that used around 6,000 stolen identities and ran “benefit factories” producing forged documents for thousands of bogus claims.