Social welfare fraud can now be added to the long list of reasons mass immigration has been a disaster for Austria, with the country experiencing 4,865 such cases last year. Alarmingly, nearly all such fraud is committed by foreigners.
Since 2018, the Social Benefits Fraud Task Force (SOLBE) has uncovered fraud with social benefits totaling €135.6 million. Of those cases, 70 percent of suspects are foreigners. However, if we factor in that many of the Austrians committing the crime also have a foreign background, it is clear that this is overwhelmingly a type of fraud committed by foreigners and Austrians with a foreign background.
“More than 70 percent of the suspects are not Austrian citizens,” said Gerald Tatzgern, head of the department for combating welfare fraud. One common form of fraud is couples registering at different apartments to receive higher benefits, while still living in the same house or apartment.
Numerous shocking cases abound. For example, one Bosnian mane was receiving €1,250 a month in social security benefits every month while renting out a number of condos in his home country and making healthy profits. In that case, taxpayers lost a total of €100,000.
“When important social systems are abused, the police and tax authorities take consistent action against the perpetrators,” said Interior Minister Gerhard Karner.
The majority of cases, 2,626, were discovered in Vienna, while the second-most cases were in Lower Austria, totaling 508. The agency has investigated 25,156 cases since it was founded in 2018.
he number of foreigners committing such fraud is truly astounding, as the share of foreigners is only 16.2 percent in the whole population. Of the Austrians listed as committing social welfare fraud, many of them also have a foreign background as well, but clear data on this not available.
Austria, however, does not want to get rid of its social welfare system, even if a huge share is going to foreigners, many who never even worked in the country.
“Through its investigations, the Social Benefits Fraud Task Force ensures that social systems remain fair and available to those who actually need them,” said Karner.
The task force is also releasing information campaigns to help the public become more aware of social welfare fraud, as well as encouraging the public to provide anonymous tips on the web.
However, welfare fraud is often difficult to track, which means there are far more cases that go undetected.
In addition, welfare fraud is far from the only problem caused by Austria’s exploding migrant population. Crime statistics just released this month show that an incredible 46.8 percent of all crime suspects in the country are foreigners.
As reported by Kurier, Criminal reports involving children aged 10 to 14 have doubled in recent years, reaching 12,049 in 2024. The proportion of non-Austrian suspects in this age group stands at 48 percent. Karner said reports involving Syrian minors had “practically increased tenfold,” jumping from 150 in 2020 to around 1,000 last year.
“You have to address the facts clearly and distinctly. The number of complaints by Syrian suspects stands out,” Karner said earlier this month.
Germany also rife with welfare fraud
Neighboring Germany is also suffering from such welfare fraud cases. In one cases, hundreds of thousands of euros in benefits were sent to a migrant clan family that was already earning millions form illicit activities.
In the small German city of Braunschweig, asylum seekers, mostly from Sudan, were accused of committing benefit fraud worth millions. The “record holder” in that case had 12 identities which he rotated to receive benefits under each new name. Authorities in the city were pursuing 300 different cases just in 2017 alone.
According to the government report, the refugees registered several times at the state reception center in Braunschweig. Realizing they could gain benefits under different names, they would give themselves at least three to four different identities.
“Sometimes they grow a beard, sometimes they put on glasses, sometimes their hair is shorter — they always have different surnames,” said SOKO director Jörn Memenga.
In another case from 2018, a criminal syndicate helped Nigerian immigrants gain residency by offering Berlin authorities fake papers. Despite repeated internal warnings, the immigration reportedly continued approving the applications for years.
Migrants in Germany are also participating in fake marriages and earning serious money doing it in exchange for helping these “wives” to obtain residence permits in Germany. Not only that, but the new “fake” fathers of these children then receives child welfare benefits for each child. One of them, a Nigerian migrant who named himself “Mr. Cash Money,” had 22 wives and was earning tens of thousands euros through his scheme through child welfare payments. Jonathan A., which is his real name, is far from the only one, and authorities estimate there have been tens of thousands of such cases in recent years.
Austrians getting robbed blind: Nearly all welfare fraud cases are committed by foreigners