After years of vowing to crack down on pension fraud, but failing to do so, the Greek Labor Ministry has found that 9,371 pensions being paid to the widows and unmarried daughters of civil servants who have died are suspicious, and officials are vowing again to cross-check the pensions against other records.
Ministry officials said they believe the families of the dead have unlawfully failed to report the deaths so that the pension checks can keep coming. This accounts for about 8 percent of the pensions paid to the surviving relatives of civil servants who have died.
In 2011, it was reported that Greece was paying pensions to 4,500 dead and then as well to 40,000 fraudulent claimants who were being asked to return the money but not prosecuted, even though they had been stealing from the state for more than 20 years in some cases.
Pension fraud has been rampant in Greece for generations without much attempt by the government to stop it. Reuters reported that claimants getting checks for people who were dead were raking in more than $20.9 million a year, and that more than 9,000 people who said they were more than 100 years old were being paid too, but the wider scale of outright fraud is much higher.
See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!
