325 foreigners no longer residing in Italy and 410 Italians residing abroad are the pensioners, tracked down by the Guardia di Finanza, who have unduly received the social allowance. Every month they collected the 450 euros that INPS pays to the elderly over 65 in difficulty, to foreigners permanently residing in Italy and to Italians in possession of the requisites. The investigation consists of two strands, both carried out by the Public Spending and Community Fraud Repression Unit of the Guardia di Finanza, one of which relates to foreigners no longer in Italy and the other to Italians who live and work abroad. In all, the scam cost the Italian state 4,5 million euros, 2 million for the fraud of the former and 2,5 million for that of the latter.
The 325 foreigners under investigation continued to receive the INPS current account payment of €450 despite no longer residing in Italy, or without having communicated their absence from Italian soil for over 30 days, as required by law. As for the 410 Italians registered in the Registry of Italians Residing Abroad, these collected the welfare check unduly through delegated persons. The fraud was discovered thanks to an investigation starting from the analysis of the data relating to the beneficiaries of the amount made available to INPS.
Compared to foreigners' fraud, the largest share of unduly received checks belongs to Lombardy, Lazio, Campania, Tuscany, Emilia Romagna and Liguria. Specifically, for Lombardy the tax damage is equal to 677.247 euros while Lazio is slightly behind with a fraud of 663.578 euros. Finally, the Italians residing abroad who defrauded INPS come mainly from Calabria, Sicily, Lazio, Campania and Abruzzo.
