How Asian Immigrants Scrounge on UK’s Welfare System

The United Kingdom spends billions of sterling pounds annually to provide welfare services to those who have fallen on hard times. But its welfare system has been grossly abused by foreigners and Britons who, despite being employed, earn a side income from these handouts. Some Asians have built empires on these handouts. SHAMLAL PURI in London investigates how people exploit the system.

Hamid Ali, (not his real name) a father of ten, arrived in Britain as a refugee from East Africa in 1972. He has never worked. On arrival he claimed that due to a severe foot allergy he could not wear shoes and go out to work.

Ali’s ten young children aged four to twelve were his asset. Britain’s Department of Social Security made sure that he and his wife Sayeeda were able to care for their children and provide for them by giving a regular payment.

Ali has never paid any tax but receives a four-figure sum every month in Government welfare payments. These include permanent disability allowance, carer allowance for his wife, child benefits for his children and housing allowance. While claiming benefits Ali held a job of a night minicab driver receiving cash-in-hand fees without tax deduction. The authorities were too lax to investigate as he had been written off as a disabled on the dole.

Ali’s financial needs started growing every year. The house which the welfare system had provided for the family on peppercorn rent in the British Midlands became too small and Ali went to the social security office to demand bigger accommodation. The local Council relented and gave the family two three-bedroom adjacent properties with rent paid from his housing benefit allowance. Four years later that property was also small for the family and the authorities were forced to move them into three adjacent properties.

“When the Government is paying me so much money, why should I work?” asked Ali, “I am getting more than what I would have earned working! Foot allergy was just an excuse not to work!”

When the Government announced its buy-to-let scheme allowing council tenants to buy their houses Ali used his cash reserves from the money he got from the Social Security and bought all the three houses in the name of his children claiming relatives had helped them. His elder children had by now flown the nest and Ali was the proud owner of properties which
today are worth £500,000.

Ali is one of thousands of Asians who have exploited Britain’s welfare system without getting caught. There is such vehement abuse of the system because overworked and understaffed benefit officers fail to vet the claimants properly.

Upon arrival from abroad Asians are able to obtain a National Insurance Card and a National Health Card through the backdoor and with these official documents they join the queue and enjoy social security benefits.

In the largely Asian suburbs of Southall, Hounslow and Wembley, these documents and UK driving licences, can be bought from ‘agents’ at four-figure sums. These are either clever counterfeits or from a stock stolen from the Government offices.

Few Benefits Office staff members have the time and patience to check the authenticity of these documents.
It is fairly easy for a woman to get priority for low-rented council property if she becomes pregnant and declares herself as a single mother.

Kulwant Singh arrived in the UK with his family from India in 1976 ready to start a new life as a technician. He worked for a month but could not adapt to the weather. His attempt to seek help to set up his own business failed, leaving him depressed.

He sought medical treatment for a health problem and that opened the doors for him to claim benefits on the strength of documents qualifying him to UK benefits. Thanks to the efforts of his local NHS doctor, he got certified as having recurring health issues and was put on social welfare pay outs for the rest of his life.

“I was first given £25 a week,” he said, “today this has risen to £230 a week in benefits that include various allowances. I also receive some separate allowances which brings the money I receive to more than £300 a week.”

Additionally, he and his family members were housed in a spacious bungalow with the provision of domestic help. “My back garden is so big I can build two houses there,” he said.

“I have never paid any tax since I came here and have enjoyed all the benefits for many years just sitting home. I am sure I would have never got that kind of money even if I had worked here,” he confessed.

“While money is not the problem,” said Kulwant, “the biggest difficulty over the years has been sheer tediousness. I have obtained work now and then working from home on cash basis but that has not taken care of the boredom.”

The UK is a liberal welfare state where the government uses the tax-payers’ money to fund and improve social security, health, education and employment.

Welfare has been at the heart of the UK political scene as seen by the Poor Laws of the 1800s. These were basically to provide succour to Britons stricken with abject poverty during an economic crisis. At that time, between one-quarter and one-third of the UK population in the industrial cities, was living below the poverty line. But the system was subjected to widespread abuse and promoted squalor, idleness and criminality and deliberate unemployment among those who received handouts.

Over the years, laws governing welfare dole have been tightened up, but loopholes will always remain.

The foundations of the modern welfare state were laid after the 1906 general election. During the Second World War, lower and middle class Britons turned to the welfare system for help.

The 1942 Beveridge Report identified five evils in society – squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease which essentially set the basis of the present system. Beveridge emphasised that unemployment benefits should only be given at subsistence level for six months, conditional to claimants obtaining training and work, so as to discourage abuse of the system.

The present system cares for Britons from the cradle to the grave, offering various benefits and welfare handouts to those eligible.

The Government sets aside billions of pounds every year to pay for personal benefits. This is a big burden for a country saddled with a £1.5 trillion national debt, growing at the rate of £5,170 per second.

In 2009-10 it allocated UK£29 billion for personal benefits. The British Government spent £113.1 billion in 2011 on the welfare state in addition to £119.4 billion on state pensions to which every Briton is eligible and £121 billion for free health services.

On average, Britain spends over £20 billion in providing housing and council tax benefits; £5.1 billion to unemployed people and £41 billion to people on low incomes. These figures increase each year.

The welfare system provides housing benefit, disability living allowance, income support, pension credit, rent rebates, jobseekers allowance, incapacity benefit, council tax benefit and some uncategorized benefits.

However, little has changed from the days of the Poor Laws as even today able people ranging from native Britons to Asian, African and European diaspora wiggle into the system, or use disabled relatives to claim benefits. This leads to idleness and criminality.

A majority of Britons and Asians get away with making false or exaggerated claims but a few get caught in the net.

The recent case of a London-based Asian family involving a staggering six-figure benefits fraud with which they built a business empire made national headlines recently.

Shahab Reza, 52, the ringleader of a £800,000 ($1.18 million) scam was jailed for nine years after falsely claiming this colossal amount in disability benefits in a four-year rip-off. He also lied to their local council about their financial position, raking in a further £100,000 in other benefits and tax exemptions.

The con involved submitting bogus invoices for sign language interpreters to the Department of Work and Pensions duping officials out of the huge sums through the Access to Work scheme with “scandalous ease”.

The profoundly deaf Shahab roped in his deaf wife Shehnaz, 53, their university educated children Abbas, 26, Zainab 22, and a string of acquaintances from the mosque in the elaborate swindle in which the family spent the cash they received on diamonds and luxury foreign holidays.

The Rezas used the cash, earmarked to help vulnerable Britons find work, to fund an extravagant lifestyle, including trips to Dubai, where they bought a £600,000 luxury property.

While claiming benefits, Shahab set up a complex network of six fake companies around the world to launder thousands of pounds they received every month in false expenses claims.

Shehnaz and Abbas, a qualified doctor, were found guilty of fraud charges but the jury could not reach a verdict on Zainab.

Detectives seized thousands of pounds worth of gold jewellery and gems, including an £8,000 diamond from a safe at their house in London.

In another on-going case, two East London sisters who raked in £183,000 in a six-year housing benefit scam could face jail.

Deepa Dippita-Hewage, 47, and Kumudu Mendis, 46, of Colenso Road, Seven Kings, conned Redbridge Council by making fraudulent claims between 2007 and 2013. They claimed to be living in privately rented accommodation while staying for free in their relatives’ homes.

The two women, who moved house several times during the period, were summoned to appear at Snaresbrook Crown Court in February along with their husbands, Bandula Dippita-Hewage and Sumeda Mendis. But they both pleaded guilty to one count of fraud by false representation before a jury could be sworn.

The court heard Dippita-Hewage received an overpayment of just over £83,000, while Mendis netted £91,000 from the fraud.

Sumeda Mendis, who is currently serving a prison sentence, is alleged to have made around £10,000 in the scam.

A further count of conspiracy to commit fraud against both women was left to lie on file.

The prosecution dropped its case against Bandula Dippita-Hewage, offering no evidence on one count of conspiracy to defraud, and on two counts of aiding and abetting his brother and sister-in-law to commit fraud.

The Crown Prosecution Service has yet to decide how to proceed with his case.

Adjourning sentence to a later date, Judge Richard Carey-Hughes said: “These are serious offences and a lot of money is involved, and I make it clear to you that all sentencing options, including that of sending you to prison, are going to be open.”

The three defendants were granted unconditional bail until the next hearing.

It is not only the young Asians who cheat the welfare system but also pensioners. Take the case of benefits swindler – pensioner Mercy Chellah of East London who claimed over £71,450.87 in false housing benefits over eleven years, claiming she lived in privately rented accommodation, while she lived with her two daughters Maralyn Jeevabalaramani and Jacqueline Keneston, at two separate addresses.

Chellah and her daughters appeared at Snaresbrook Crown Court in February and were charged with dishonestly making false statements. Each was given a 12 month prison sentences, suspended for 18 months, in addition to victim surcharges of £100 each. Chellah was spared jail because she is too old. Her two daughters were also given 250 hours of compulsory unpaid work.

Kulwant Singh put it sardonically, “I don’t see any reason why we Indians should not claim welfare benefits while living in Britain. After all, they ruled India for 200 years and it is now time for them to pay us back.”

Shamlal Puri, TII’s Contributing Editor in London, is a veteran British journalist, broadcaster, author and press photographer. He has worked with the media in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. His novels ‘Dubai Dreams: The Rough Road to Riches’ and ‘Triangle of Terror’ are acclaimed bestsellers. His novel ‘The Illegals’ (Crownbird Publishers) has been published this year. He has travelled to more than 100 countries in an illustrious journalistic career spanning 40 years. His work has been published in more than 250 magazines, newspapers and journals around the world.