More and more people commit assistance fraud.
The money finances both terrorist groups and organized crime.
– It is deeply provocative that our welfare system is milked for money, says Minister for the Elderly Anna Tenje.
The number of assistance frauds, where benefits are paid on false grounds, has increased sharply in recent years.
In Sweden, fraud amounts to at least 300 million each year. This shows a survey that the National Operative Department (NOA) at the Police has made, and that TV4 has seen.
NOA has analyzed 377 reports that the Police Authority received in the years 2019-2021.
It is clear that the criminal profits from the assistance frauds have increased. In 2019, the median amount was just over SEK 250,000 and in 2021, almost all of SEK 1.5 million.
– It is deeply provocative that our welfare system is milked for money. And that tax crowns that we have earned end up in the pockets of criminal gangs and in organized crime, says Anna Tenje, Minister for the Elderly and Social Security.
“Chasing every single tax penny”
Tenje says that the government is now acting to overcome the escalating problem.
– That’s why we are now tearing down the secrecy between all authorities, so that you can share information and hunt down every single tax crown that otherwise risks ending up with organized crime, she says.
Of this SEK 300 million, there are 10 percent with clear connections to organized crime or terrorist financing, according to terrorism researcher Hans Brun.
He also believes that the reason that fraud crime has increased is, among other things, connected to the digitization and privatization of welfare, which opens up new opportunities to commit crimes.