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Fraudsters have obtained Corona emergency aid in the three-digit million range across Germany in around 25,000 cases through false information.
After the report by WELT AM SONNTAG, the search for the guilty begins.
The Ministry of Economics, led by Peter Altmaier (CDU), launched the immediate program, and the banks in the federal states disbursed the funds.
Altmaier's house therefore blames the federal states.
But who is to blame for the fiasco?
Florian Toncar, the FDP interior and legal expert in the Bundestag, cannot understand the buck game.
"The responsible ministers Peter Altmaier and Olaf Scholz must immediately convene a federal-state summit to determine how the money stolen by fraud can be retrieved", Toncar demands.
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The fraud dimension is far greater than the number of cases shows.
"That is just a small outgrowth," says Jochen Sindberg, who heads the white-collar crime department at the Berlin State Criminal Police Office (LKA).
The authority had more than 10,000 unprocessed reports on the subsidy fraud.
The LKA had warned of this early on, by circular on April 3, 2020.
The fiasco is particularly big in Berlin
Why did so much go wrong, especially in the capital?
The Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB) paid out the aid in a short time, the public prosecutor is now investigating four bank managers on suspicion of infidelity.
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Senator for Economic Affairs Ramona Pop (Greens) refers to the federal government.
"As the licensing office of the State of Berlin, the IBB processes the applications in accordance with the implementation instructions of the federal government," it says in its administration.
The IBB, in turn, rejects all allegations and charges the red-red-green state government.
"The IBB implemented the Corona-Aid funding program in close coordination with the responsible senate administrations for economy, energy and operations as well as finances in accordance with the resolutions of the Berlin Senate and House of Representatives," said the bank.
Mosque associations and Islamists benefited
To make matters worse, Islamists in Berlin also benefited from the aid.
The public prosecutor, in which 50 cases against Islamists and mosque associations are pending, "expects indictments soon".
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The chairman of the German Police Union, Rainer Wendt, says: “It is unbelievable that extremists have also hopped off in Berlin.
With its sloppiness, the state also finances those who fight it. "
Salafists illegally collect Corona aid
The police searched several Salafist apartments in Berlin.
The suspicion: You are said to have stolen several thousand euros through fraud with Corona emergency aid.
There are even connections to the stop on Breitscheidplatz.
Source: WORLD
He blames the Senate for the grievances: "The Red City Hall is not governed, but plundered, there is no other way to call it." However, he has little hope that the amounts will ever be recovered.
The federal and state governments blamed each other.
"Once again, organized irresponsibility rules," said Wendt.
Union vice-parliamentary group leader Thorsten Frei (CDU) also goes to court with the Berlin Senate: “In view of the enormous accumulation of cases in the federal capital, one must seriously ask whether the red-red-green Senate is not in a position to implement such a program to be administered sensibly, ”says Frei.
In Berlin, the public prosecutor's office has so far registered 2,600 cases of suspected fraud.
The deputy chairman of the Police Union (GdP), Jörg Radek, is critical: “The fraudulent crime has adapted to the pandemic, criminals are reacting to the exceptional situation.
Whenever there is money involved, the fraudsters are quick to get involved. ”They must finally be put to rest with all consistency.
“It is a mistake to believe that crime is falling because of the Corona crisis.
It is just looking for new ways, ”warns Radek.
Dirk Wiese, the deputy SPD parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, is concerned about the high number of cases of fraud recorded by the police.
He demands that a situation report be drawn up for this purpose.
“It is urgently necessary to draw up a picture of the situation in order to make it visible whether areas of organized crime are involved.
We have to take targeted action against the fact that important aids that have to reach honest business people on site are misused by criminal energy, ”says Wiese.
In the area of organized crime in particular, “there is still a lot to be optimized.” This is obviously more important than just clarifying the question of guilt.