There were 12 fraudulent claims for cash support for businesses during the pandemic, a council report has revealed. A total of 9,524 grants were handed out totalling almost 30million to support firms and traders through the pandemic, the annual fraud report to North East Lincolnshire Council states.
It revealed the variety of methods used by fraudsters to try to get tax payers money from NELC while most businesses were in lockdown and staff forced to go on furlough. None of the businesses have been named in the report.
One of the most frequently used is by changing bank mandates. In one case in August last year a total of 22,000 was lost to a fraudster. But most of that has been recouped. Government support to businesses through the coronavirus pandemic was administered through North East Lincolnshire Council, but created more opportunities for fraud, told investigators.
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The report to members of the audit and governance committee meeting taking place on Thursday states: "Intelligence provided in regular fraud alerts identifying bank accounts, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers used in fraudulent applications has also been used, with applications checked against this data to minimise the risk of a fraudulent application being successful. As a result, to date we are aware of only 12 fraudulent applications having been made, the majority being stopped pre-payment.
"To put this in...
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