Luis F. Durán Madrid

Madrid

Updated Wednesday, March 27, 2024-12:40

The National Police has dismantled an organization that allegedly defrauded Social Security of more than four million euros by capitalizing unemployment benefits into a single payment. A total of 25 people have been arrested in different locations in Madrid for being part of this network dedicated to committing fraud against the State Public Employment Service (SEPE).

The number of illicit files identified exceeds 400,

formalized between 2020 and 2024, and among those arrested are

four public employees and four workers from banking entities who received up to 50,000 euros annually.

The investigation began in December 2022, after detecting irregularities in the activity of various employees dedicated to the processing of unemployment benefits. Specifically, the computer analysis detected

unjustified access to multiple files

, mostly related to operations to capitalize unemployment benefits, a measure aimed at promoting self-employment and that allows recipients of contributory aid to allocate the entire of the benefit they have pending to receive to cover the expenses necessary to become self-employed.

The subsequent police investigations discovered a network that included public employment services officials, bank employees and administrative managers, among others. All of them were integrated into

an organization with a clear distribution of functions and a structure distributed in five links.

Firstly, the organization had

two men who played the role of management and customer acquisition

, drawing up strategies regarding what type of requests should be made and calculating the profit margin for each service, which ranged between 25% and 40% of the total capitalization amount. Likewise,

they established contacts with clients

, whom they directed to

an agency in the Madrid district of Latina.

In this agency, the necessary documentary procedures to support the requests were formalized, with its managers and workers being integrated into this second group of the organization. These procedures supported the

request for aid to acquire vehicles or computer equipment that should serve as initial capital to begin the self-employed unemployed person's activity

. However, said purchases were accredited through false invoices, acting in collusion with two men, one of them dedicated to administrative traffic management and a second who ran a vehicle dealership near the aforementioned office.

The third of the relevant roles within the organization was related to the

monitoring of files and advice, which was performed by the detained public employees

- one of them belonging to the SEPE and three to the General Directorate of the Public Employment Service of the Community of Madrid -, who

used their access credentials to the SEPE databases to carry out systematic and daily consultation of the beneficiaries

and files of interest, controlling the procedures from their beginning to the final moment of payment of the benefit. In exchange for these tasks,

the aforementioned public employees received constant monthly payments from those responsible for the organization, which could reach up to 50,000 euros.

They controlled the final profit through bank employees

In the fourth link are the

employees of banking entities, who were dedicated to controlling beneficiaries and payments.

Previously, those responsible for the organization had contacted them to be in charge of opening bank accounts that were contributed to the SEPE as destination accounts for illicitly obtained benefits. In this way,

these people controlled the banking movements and ensured that the network received the agreed amounts through balance withholdings or

deferred payment orders for the agreed amount, which ranged between 25% and 40% of the benefit.

Once the profits of the scheme were secured, the beneficiaries transferred the committed amounts, entering the final section of the investigation, that of receiving benefits.

These were destined to bank accounts controlled by the companies in which the members of the organization participated or to their personal accounts.

A total of 16 searches in homes and offices in Madrid

The exploitation phase of this investigation took place last week with 16 searches carried out in homes and offices in Madrid and the arrest of the 25 members of the network, who were brought to justice as allegedly

responsible for crimes against Social Security. , document falsification, bribery, revelation of secrets, money laundering and integration into a criminal organization.

In the searches carried out, computer equipment and mobile devices, high-end watches, more than 25,000 euros in cash, four vehicles and abundant documentation, among other items, were seized. The SEPE official works in the Atocha office (Madrid).

From the initial moment of the investigation described above, the communication and coordination between the National Police and the employment departments of the two public administrations concerned - General Directorate of the State Public Employment Service - SEPE (Ministry of Labor and Social Economy), the Labor and Social Security Inspection and General Directorate of the Public Employment Service of the Community of Madrid (Department of Finance and Employment) - turned out to be complete and highly effective, establishing clarification of the facts as a priority objective from the first moment.