Taskforce Solbe Baden: Successful fight against social service fraud

Taskforce Solbe Baden: Successful fight against social service fraud

In the Baden district, the fight against social service fraud is conducted with great commitment. The Taskforce Solbe has been active since January 1, 2019, and its success is impressive: During this time, 159 crimes were uncovered that caused a considerable damage of around 2.7 million euros. Josef Dötzl, head of the Taskforce Solbe Lower Austria at the State Criminal Police Office in Lower Austria, emphasizes the outstanding cooperation of all participating institutions.

The offenses change a wide range of social benefits, including basic care, compensation allowance, unemployment benefit, emergency aid, as well as other services such as childcare allowance and disability pension. The pretense of the center of life in Austria is particularly problematic. With the help of official documents, perpetrators register their place of residence in Austria, but actually live abroad and obtain illegal social benefits.

Special case of attempted fraud

An outstanding example from this area is a complicated case that became known in May. In Bad Vöslau, a 41-year-old Serbian citizen was arrested after trying to sneak up care allowance and a professional invalidity pension by pretending to be poor health. According to Dötzl, with the help of her relatives, the woman deceived a half -sided body restriction and even claimed a wheelchair.

The attempted fraud is dramatically drawn up, because if the 41-year-old had actually received the requested services, a total damage of around 626,000 euros would have occurred. As part of the ongoing investigations, it turned out that despite her alleged state of health, the woman was involved in a renovation company of her husband and son. Finally she was arrested and received a conditional prison sentence of 21 months while her husband got away at the 15 months.

The effort of the Taskforce Solbe, which works closely with various authorities such as the AMS, the financial police and the pension insurance institution, pays off. In order to continue to act against these fraud, the regular exchange between the positions involved is considered indispensable. In Baden this is shown by the functioning network meetings in which those responsible can discuss their success and challenges.

The partners in this fight, including the financial police and the Federal Office for Foreign Affairs, ensure that cooperation at the state and district level is effective. This not only combats social service fraud effectively, but also strengthens trust in the social system.

More details on these developments can be found here .